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Jun 21, 2025 By Scott Howard Web Exclusive

A thin premise that devolves into a rip-roaringly bad time, Pins and Needles is a survival thriller that throws its diabetic heroine into a life-or-death crisis as she’s hunted inside the home of a mustache-twirlingly evil couple. It puts its medical premise front and center to drive the plot, but with one substantial issue: there seems to have been absolutely no understanding of diabetes or how one manages it. There’s suspension of disbelief, and then there’s just ridiculous storytelling.

Even setting that aside, Pins and Needles is marred by astoundingly goofy acting, questionable character decisions and motives, repetitive dialogue, and plot holes that go beyond camp and veer into just plain bad territory.

Max (Chelsea Clark) is a biological research student on a road trip for a remote study with a classmate. In a bit of exposition, she briefly explains her insulin-dependent diabetes and how important it is to have her medication. When a spike strip blows out their tires, they’re forced to seek help at a bizarrely post-modern mansion in the wilderness. Once the occupants—Frank (Ryan McDonald) and Emily (Kate Corbett)—arrive, Max’s companions are ruthlessly dispatched, and she’s forced to evade her pursuers. Max must navigate a residence’s cold hallways, concealing a lab of horrific human wellness experiments. A looming medical crisis worsens this cat-and-mouse game. How can she evade her hunters, get her medication, and escape intact?

Pins and Needles prides itself on a breakneck pace with a classic final girl trope, racing against time to survive. While the premise may seem serviceable, the execution wastes any potential. The narrative continually trips over its own setup. You may notice this review keeps mentioning Max’s insulin-dependent diabetes—that’s because the film does so every six minutes. The writers treat the audience as if they need constant reminders via voiceovers, flashbacks, and repeated dialogue. There’s also an exhausting amount of “as you know, Bob” exposition dumps. Some lines don’t even sound like they were written for actual people, such as: “I don’t know what it’s like to not be the smartest guy in the room.”

The medical science is shaky at best, and there’s never a clear reason why Frank and Emily are experimenting on people or what their bizarre treatments are meant to accomplish. Who are they trying to sell their formula to, and why? Why would a diabetic scream when administering insulin? How often does blood sugar need to be taken?

Questionable character choices also undermine an otherwise decent protagonist. Why is Max forced to choose between a flashlight and a knife when she has two hands? Why does she inject insulin in a clearly painful way while hiding within feet of her pursuers? Why does she return to the house after escaping in a car? This isn’t just weak storytelling—it’s poor filmmaking, straight-to-streaming or otherwise.

Villeneuve’s characters are so overloaded with tropes that their most memorable traits are how absurdly they’re performed, especially McDonald and Corbett. McDonald tries to channel a blend of Patrick Bateman, evil scientist, and Silicon Valley bro, and it just does. Not. Work. Corbett, meanwhile, plays it with a bubbly psychosis that’s so over-the-top it circles back into being almost entertaining. She tries to be grounded but over-delivers by about 500%. At one point, during a rage-filled attempt to strangle Max, she lets out what can only be described as an actual “e-rawr!” Chelsea Clark does what she can as the lead, but a terrible script ultimately shackles her.

Writer-director James Villeneuve turns in a cinematic lesson in how not to make a movie. The shaky camerawork, poor visual quality, and jarring editing (think unintentional jump cuts) feel more like a high school film project shot on a cell phone. I’m pretty sure some of the gore effects used literal spaghetti sauce—not a joke. The dubbing is painfully obvious in certain scenes, completely pulling viewers out of the moment. The musical choices are tonally off, and scenes that beg for a soundtrack are left in awkward silence.

This was a difficult watch. If not for the occasional burst of unintentional camp, there would be almost no way to endure it. The idea itself had potential in more capable hands, but the final product is an unpleasant experience, even with its fleeting attempts at satire. It’s tough to be this hard on a film, knowing how hard productions can be, but this one feels phoned in from top to bottom. In an age of endless streaming content, Pins and Needles will likely get lost—and maybe that’s for the best. (www.filmhub.com)

Author rating: 1.5/10