[4.00/10] Needle (2010)

Needle (2010)

This Aussie horror film titled "Needle" unfolds around Ben Rutherford, a young college student, who inherits a small antique machine known as "La Vaudou Vaudou Mort" from his late father's estate. He shows the mysterious machine off to a group of his close friends who are suitably impressed, but he returns to his dorm room one day to find that the machine has gone missing! He suspects that one of his friends has stolen it, but who? The next day his estranged older brother Marcus, a forensic photographer, turns up with some terrible news - Ben's best friend, Ryan, has been gruesomely killed, ripped apart from the inside by some unexplainable force. Do not get mislead by the well-designed poster or by film's promising title, because "Needle" is a generic, dull and terribly-executed horror flick that has almost nothing to offer. Furthermore, "Needle" suffers from poor acting and script, flat and one-dimensional characters, and director's complete lack of ideas and imagination. The story has been done hundred times before and better, and it's so disappointingly predictable and unintriguing, that the audience can easily lose interest quickly, and worst of all it leads to a unbelievably ridiculous twist ending, that's neither shocking nor effective enough to compensate plot's weaknesses. The atrocious acting from all the young Aussie cast involved, 'contributes' to the overall awfulness of "Needle". Michael Dorman as the main protagonist, Ben Rutherford, is so bland and expressionless, that he hardly evokes any interest and sympathy from the viewer. Former fashion model Travis Fimmel does a fairly decent job as the outcasted brother of Ben, but he relies more on his physical beauty rather than his acting skills. Jessica Marais, Trilby Glover and Tahyna Tozzi who play the female characters in this film are all terrible and actually quite annoying to watch. Technically, the film also does not make a big impression. John V. Soto's direction is pretty uninspired, the visuals are quite ordinary, and the overall look of the film is nothing-to-write-home-about. However, the death scenes are surprisingly well-handled, moderately gory and even gruesome at times, but they're not enough to save this film from being a complete lackluster. Unimaginative, badly-crafted and often boring, "Needle" provides very little mystery, zero thrills, zero scares, and even less originality.