Publicity
poster for Pin (aka PIN) (© Sandor Stern/Image
Organization/Lance Entertainment/Malofilm/Telefilm Canada/New World Pictures –
reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for
educational/review purposes only)
Many films feature a character who has an
imaginary friend, but whereas such friends are usually invisible to everyone
else, in the Canadian psychological thriller/horror movie to be reviewed here the imaginary friend is visible – only too
visible, and audible, in fact!
For me, the most effective horror movies
are not the ones awash with blood and gore, but rather those that get inside
your head, insidiously penetrating your mind, infiltrating and then tenaciously
taking residence within your thoughts, your dreams, and sometimes your
nightmares too. Last night, I watched one such movie – Pin.
Directed and written by Sandor Stern,
based upon Andrew Neiderman's eponymous 1981 novel, and released by New World
Pictures in 1988, Pin (or PIN, as given in some sources, despite
this name not being an acronym) takes to a whole new level of creepiness the
perennially popular horror theme of an inanimate human simulacrum ostensibly
taking on a life of its own, and a malign, controlling one at that, whether it
be a ventriloquist's dummy (as in Magic,
1978, for instance), a life-sized doll (as more recently in The Boy, 2016), or something else.
In the case of Pin, the 'something else'
is a life-sized anatomically-precise adult male wood/plastic medical dummy
named Pin (short for Pinocchio, a name given to it by the then-young daughter
of physician Dr Frank Linden (played by Terry O'Quinn), sitting in a wheelchair.
SPOILER
ALERT!! I do not normally present the entire storyline of a movie when
reviewing it, but in this instance I feel it necessary to do so – so if you
don't want to know the plot and in particular its final, devastating twist, read no further!!
In a very strange, unconventional family
set-up, both Dr Linden and his wife Mrs Linden (Bronwen Mantel) are very cold
and distant to their two children, Ursula (Cynthia Preston when Ursula reaches
her teens) and her slightly older brother Leon (David Hewlett when Leon reaches
his teens). Mrs Linden, moreover, is driven to manic levels by cleaning OCD, to
such an extent that she refuses to allow the children to bring any potential
school friends home in case they make the house dirty. So away from school Leon
and Ursula remain isolated from children their own age, relying very much on
each other for friendship, but in the case of Leon, he has one very special additional
friend too…
Dr Linden uses Pin not only to
demonstrate biology to adult patients and as a demonstration aid at medical conventions
but also as a means of relaxing young patients, by using his considerable
ventriloquism skills in order to enable Pin to 'talk' to them, explaining their
ailments in a child-friendly manner. He even uses Pin as a surrogate to talk to
Ursula and Leon when they are small (communicating with them via the dummy in a
playful way that he is emotionally incapable of doing directly, as their father).
Yet whereas as they grow older Ursula realizes that Pin's talking is merely
ventriloquism, performed by their father, Leon continues to believe that Pin is
genuinely talking to him – a first indication that Leon may have issues…
And indeed, as the years go by from
childhood into adolescence Leon turns ever more to Pin, treating him as a
fully-fledged friend, mastering ventriloquism until he is as adept at this cryptic
art as his father is, and using it to have long conversations with Pin whenever
he finds himself alone with the dummy in his father's surgery. Disturbingly,
however, Leon still believes that Pin is talking to him, seemingly unaware that
it is he himself, via ventriloquism, who is providing Pin with its voice (a
somewhat eerie voice, incidentally, supplied by Wiseguy actor Jonathan Banks).
By the time that Leon and Ursula have
reached their teens, Leon's mind has to all intents and purposes split into two
autonomous portions, each with its own personality. One portion is Leon, the
other portion is Pin, but no-one in his family is aware of his psychosis, until
Ursula, now aged 15 and sexually promiscuous, discovers that she is pregnant.
Petrified about telling her father, she confesses all to Leon, asking his
advice. In reply, and to her bewilderment, Leon proposes that they go and ask
Pin, and when he takes her to the dummy she watches incredulously as Leon and
Pin have a conversation about her situation. She can see straight away that
Leon is using ventriloquism to yield Pin's voice, just like her father did when
they were children, but she can also see that Leon is not aware of what he is
doing, that instead he truly believes Pin is talking to him. Traumatised, she
flees the room.
Ursula has no option but to confess her
pregnancy to their father, who decides to carry out the required abortion
himself, and even encourages Leon to watch, for educational purposes! Speaking
of which: years earlier when explaining the facts of life to Ursula and Leon
after their mother had caught them giggling over a pornographic magazine, instead
of telling them directly he had yet again used Pin to do so, even allowing them
to check out Pin's private parts. I told you that they were a strange family!
It's little wonder that Leon went off the rails, but it took their father a
long time to realize just how far off the rails Leon had travelled.
One evening, however, after returning unexpectedly
to his surgery to pick up some papers that he'd forgotten for a lecture that he
is due to give shortly at a medical society and is already running late for,
Linden is greatly shocked to discover a now late-teenage Leon there, having one
of his ventriloquistic conversations with Pin. Linden realizes for the very
first time that his son is mentally ill, and that his own ventriloquistic use
of Pin with Leon and Ursula as children is at the core of his illness.
A
gif showing the moment when his father catches Leon in the act of talking with
Pin at the surgery (© Sandor Stern/Image Organization/Lance Entertainment/Malofilm/Telefilm
Canada/New World Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair
Use basis for educational/review purposes only)
Deciding not to confront Leon about this
for the time being, yet determined to sever the unhealthy link between Leon and
Pin with all speed, Linden simply tells him to go home, but not to let his mother
sitting in their car outside see him. Then as soon as Leon is gone, Linden
carries Pin to the car, where he tells his wife that he will be permanently leaving
the dummy at the medical society for use in teaching purposes. However, he
doesn't realize that Leon has been hiding nearby, has seen and heard
everything, and is totally distraught at the thought of losing Pin, his only
friend other than Ursula.
Driving erratically at high speed in an
attempt to make up time and not to be too late for the faculty meeting, Linden
loses control of the car when Pin in the back seat topples forward onto him, causing
the car to crash. Linden and his wife are both killed, but when the police
inform Leon and Ursula, Leon retrieves Pin from the wrecked car and brings the
dummy back home.
Leon and Ursula now have their grand
family house entirely to themselves, and can live how they choose – except,
that is, for a brief period when their bossy Aunt Dorothy (Patricia Collins) arrives
to take charge of them and the house, which she has always coveted. Like I say,
however, Dorothy's stay is brief, thanks to Leon using Pin to quite literally
frighten her to death one evening, after having drugged an unsuspecting Ursula
to ensure that she sleeps through it all.
Taking a local job as a librarian to get
away from the claustrophobic and downright deranged atmosphere with Leon at
home, who has now taken to dressing Pin in their late father's clothes,
applying latex to his plastic face to make him look more human, and even
insisting that he join them at the table for meals, Ursula gains a boyfriend in
the shape of college athlete Stan Fraker (John Pyper-Ferguson). Jealous, Leon
tries to have relationships with women, who are sexually attracted to him
because of his slim handsome looks, but he has no sexual interest in them
whatsoever, and even uses Pin to scare away one persistent would-be lover,
Marcia. The only woman of his own age whom he considers to be beautiful is
Ursula – uh-oh…
Both Ursula's job and (especially) her
boyfriend anger Leon, who feels that Ursula, who has always looked up to him,
is beginning to slip out of his grasp. So. as always, Leon confides his fears
to Pin, who agrees with him, which only increases his paranoia, in every sense.
Consequently, being well aware of Leon's antagonism towards her job and
boyfriend, one day Ursula invites Stan back to the house for a meal and for him
to become better acquainted with Leon, in the hope that Leon will come to like
him – but as soon as Stan arrives, holding a box of chocolates for Ursula, Leon
takes the chocolates from him, telling him that Pin loves chocolates, and
insists upon introducing him to Pin. To Leon's surprise and displeasure,
however, Stan seems unfazed by the dummy, even talking to it (because Ursula
had forewarned Stan about the Leon/Pin situation). During the evening, Leon becomes
increasingly distraught and distracted by how close Ursula and Stan clearly
are, but when they ask him to read some of his poetry to them, writing poetry
having long been his greatest intellectual passion, Leon begins to unwind,
especially when Stan appears to like it.
Ursula
and Leon (Cyndy Preston and David Hewlett) (© Sandor Stern/Image
Organization/Lance Entertainment/Malofilm/Telefilm Canada/New World Pictures –
reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for
educational/review purposes only)
Delighted by this unexpected turn of
events, Leon goes joyfully upstairs to tell Pin, but Pin warns him not to be
fooled. Sure enough, when Leon comes back down he overhears Stan and Ursula
talking animatedly, with Ursula stating that she is only too well aware of
Leon's mental state, having read every book on paranoid schizophrenia and
suchlike in the library, but she will not allow him to be incarcerated in a
mental asylum. In response, Stan retorts that even Leon's poetry is sick – and
indeed, in the poem that he had read to them a little earlier that evening, its
protagonist was seeking to rape his own sister. There had been indications of
incestuous thoughts on Leon's part all through the movie but this is the first
time that they are made readily apparent.
Leon does not betray that he knows what Ursula
and Stan have said, but, goaded on by Pin, he swiftly plans his revenge, luring
Stan shortly afterwards to visit him at the house while Ursula is at work in
the library, on the pretext of needing Stan's help in arranging a surprise
birthday party for her. After drugging Stan's drink when he arrives to render
him sleepy, Leon savagely beats Stan about the head with a heavy ornament, then
places his body inside a transparent zip-up suit bag before hiding it in the
woodpile outside, beneath a big pile of logs. He then tries to scrub the blood
off the floor inside the house where Stan had fallen – all the while following
Pin's specific instructions.
When Ursula returns home that evening,
however, it is clear from Leon's flustered attitude and inability to eat that
all is not well, and she too is worried, not having received a call from Stan
about their planned night out together. Leon tries to cover by claiming that
Stan had called him instead, asking him to tell Ursula that he had to visit a
sick relative, but Ursula is clearly not convinced. Suddenly, she hears a very familiar,
characteristic chiming – the chime that is emitted on the hour every hour by
the watch that she had recently given Stan as a birthday present.
At first, Ursula thinks that Stan is
playing a joke on her, that he is hiding here inside the house. Then she finds
his watch on the floor, and spots a wet patch of blood on the carpet close by.
When she confronts Leon, he breaks down, falling to the ground alongside Pin
sitting in its wheelchair, and putting the blame on Pin, claiming that it was
all the dummy's fault. Hysterical with rage, Ursula races outside, grabs a heavy
double-axe from the woodpile, races back inside, swings it over her head, then
brings it crashing down as a terrified Leon screams out – and then...
The next thing that we see on screen is
the police outside the Linden house, with Ursula held inside one of their cars,
and a couple of police officers removing logs from the woodpile, watched by
other officers and a crowd of curious onlookers. Suddenly, one of the two officers
at the woodpile spots the bag containing Stan's body and then, as he begins to haul
it out, he gasps in amazement – Stan is still alive!
Leon
with Pin in its original unclothed, non-latexed state (© Sandor Stern/Image
Organization/Lance Entertainment/Malofilm/Telefilm Canada/New World Pictures –
reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for
educational/review purposes only)
Only one final, but unforgettable scene
is left to play. At some undetermined time following the above-described climax,
Ursula and a now fully-recovered Stan have driven back to the Linden family house.
Leaving Stan outside in the car, Ursula goes inside, meets briefly with a nurse
(who refers to her as Mrs Fraker, so she and Stan are clearly married now),
then walks inside one of the upstairs rooms. A figure is sitting motionless in
a wheelchair at the far end of the room, staring out of a window with their
back towards her.
"Hello Pin," Ursula says, but
receives no response from the figure. She then states that she and Stan are going
away on vacation to Cape Cod for a week, and she wonders if there is anything that
Pin would like. In its unmistakable voice, Pin tells her to wind up a musical
ballerina figurine, which when she was a child had been given to her by her
father as a gift from Pin. It now stands next to a framed photo-portrait of
Leon on a table next to where she is standing inside the room, so she winds it
up and watches it as it slowly rotates on its base while the tinkling music
plays. "Have you heard from Leon?" asks Pin. Striving to hold back
tears and remain composed, Ursula replies that she hasn't. "I miss him a
great deal," responds Pin. This time, it takes longer for Ursula to
compose herself, before finally replying: "So do I".
By now, I'd seriously begun to wonder
whether this riveting if decidedly weird movie had cleverly thrown me a curved
ball from the word go, i.e. that Pin had genuinely been talking all along, and
that every assumption I'd made about what had been happening in the story had
therefore been wrong, its plot having presented a masterly performance in misdirection,
in fact – but then…
Throughout their brief conversation, the
camera has remained focused entirely upon Ursula, mostly upon her face. Abruptly,
however, the camera now switches instantaneously from Ursula's face to that of
Pin – except, of course, it isn't Pin's face or, indeed, Pin. It is Leon –
totally immobile, with his face as expressionless as Pin's had always been, but
it is Leon's, and Leon, nonetheless. After several seconds, his face fades to
black, and the end credits start to roll.
From this dramatic closing shot, it is
now evident what had happened earlier after an enraged Ursula had brought down
the axe. She hadn't attacked Leon with it (she'd be in prison if she had done,
not going on holiday with Stan!). Instead, she had smashed up Pin, whom she blamed
for Leon's madness and all the unhappiness that had stemmed from that for both
of them. But seeing his friend destroyed had been too much for Leon's already
fragile grasp on reality to withstand. Incapable of bearing the loss of Pin,
Leon had become Pin. The Leon portion
of his mind had been absorbed entirely by the Pin portion. Only the outer physical
shell of Leon remained, his mind now was Pin, which is why Ursula had addressed
him as Pin. No doubt she had been advised by Leon's medical team that this is
the only way that she would elicit any response from an otherwise catatonic
Leon. (Incidentally, this closing scene explains the otherwise oblique opening
one that I deliberately haven't mentioned here, bringing this movie's plot full
circle, but I'll leave you to watch the full film in order to understand that!)
Many movies of this nature would have
taken the clichéd cop-out route when bringing it to a shocking close –
revealing that Pin was alive after all, that he really had been some
supernatural or possessed entity. So it was a pleasant surprise that this time
the movie-makers had stuck to their guns and remained faithful to everything
that they had set up along the way. In particular, when he is first seen making
Pin talk, close-ups of Dr Linden's face plainly show the slight movements of
his lips and throat, leaving the viewer in no doubt that ventriloquism is at
work. The same ploy is used when Leon is talking to Pin about Ursula's
pregnancy while she is present – she even looks directly at Leon's lips and
throat, and later asks him when he had learnt to do that (to which Leon denies
that he'd done anything, claiming that Pin had truly spoken to them – tragic testimony to the split-personality status that his mind had assumed by now).
But the fact that Pin is not supernatural
does not make his story any less terrifying – if anything, it becomes even more
so, when the full extent of Leon's psychosis becomes apparent. And here I have
to give great praise to the two leads, whose acting skills achieve so much in
maintaining both the interest and the believability of this often macabre but thoroughly
spellbinding film that in lesser hands could so easily have been trite and
tasteless. Moreover, even its musical score (by Peter Manning Robinson) is both
despairingly sad and captivatingly creepy! But back to the leads:
David Hewlett is mesmerizingly chilling,
creating in the superficially charming but socially awkward and increasingly
unhinged Leon a serious rival to Anthony Perkins's duplicitously deadly,
thoroughly insane Norman Bates in Psycho,
no less. And yet, having seen the emotional
torments inflicted upon him throughout his childhood and adolescence by his own unequivocally odd,
unfeeling parents and cruel, uncaring schoolmates, one cannot help but feel
sorry for Leon, and even a degree of compassion and comprehension too when in
desperate need for a friend and confidante he turns from outward influences to
inward ones instead, his troubled mind focusing upon Pin and insidiously transforming
him into the perfect friend. Meanwhile, almost as if she is the obverse side of
the same coin as Leon (which I suppose in many ways is indeed true), Cyndy
Preston's Ursula is so outward going that by adolescence she has become
sexually promiscuous. Nevertheless, she is also winsomely and winningly beautiful,
both physically and personally, remaining believably
steadfast to her disturbed brother throughout the movie, even to – especially
to – the very end, despite her terrible realization quite early on that his
mind is seriously damaged.
Pin was released at a time when
the horror movie fad was for supernatural shocks and scares, all garnished with
lashings of gore and gallons of blood, so this sophisticated horror movie of
the mind pretty much lost its way, receiving praise from those few who actually
noticed it, but overlooked by the vast majority of viewers and reviewers. This
is a great tragedy, because it deserved, and still deserves, far more
recognition. Today, like so many other distinctive films that suffered
similarly unjust fates when originally released, Pin has become something of a cult movie, and rightly so. Alfred
Hitchcock, who directed the afore-mentioned Psycho,
was a great believer in less is more when producing a successful thriller film,
and in leaving its most shocking content to the human imagination, so I
strongly suspect that he would have enjoyed Pin,
which follows his example to the letter.
I freely confess that despite being a
lover of strange, little-known movies, I was entirely unaware of Pin until I chanced upon a DVD of it for
50p on a market stall just over a week ago, but it was 50p very well spent,
that's for sure! Moreover, you can enjoy Pin
for even less than that, because if you click here, you can currently watch this
entire movie free of charge, on YouTube (or here,
if you want to watch a hilariously OTT trailer for it!). You can thank me later!
Finally: To view a complete chronological listing of all of
my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one
instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a
complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.
The
full cover of the official UK Cinema Club sell-thru VHS video of Pin (© Sandor Stern/Image
Organization/Lance Entertainment/Malofilm/Telefilm Canada/New World Pictures/Cinema Club – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for
educational/review purposes only)
