Sinful

Sinful is a short, low-budget horror/thriller that’s not particularly good. The most talented person involved with the making of this movie was whoever was in charge of distribution. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how this movie has over 2000 votes on IMdB.

The film takes place in a single location. Lesbian couple Salem and Remy are on the run after committing a crime. They’ve holed themselves up in a house they broke into and are awaiting the arrival of Salem’s friend, Tyler. However, something is amiss in the house or in the minds of the two women. Remy cracks first. She becomes paranoid and starts hearing a voice saying threatening things. Later, Salem too begins to experience unsettling events. Both women lose their grasp on reality and begin seeing a masked man lurking in doorways.

Sinful is by no means all bad. Especially in the second act, I was intrigued as to where the film was going. There is certainly a display of basic understanding of movie making here. Scenes of Remy or Salem experiencing frightening moments are pretty well done.There is a successful element of tension here. The editing stands out as an element that makes the film more gripping. Sinful is also smart in finding a way to tell a story that requires minimal cast, locations or budget. Apparently the film was shot during the COVID lockdown so again, good job in finding a story that fits within those limitations. Also, Christina Lo who plays Remy is really trying. Her performance is the realistic best you could hope for given the material she has to work with.

But a small budget isn’t the only thing holding Sinful back from being good. As much as the actual scary moments are decently done, everything that surrounds them is much poorer. The dialogue is quite bad and the story is poor. And as decent as Christina Lo’s acting is, that doesn’t make up for the fact that Nicole D’Angelo’s performance as Salem is pretty weak. Also, the quick cut editing which works okay in moments of fear and uncertainty is not as successful in non-scary scenes. There’s a lot of bad and overt cuts which lead to multiple continuity errors and pacing that feels jerky and rushed.

Still, I was willing to give this film a mixed review on account of the fact that it had some competence in the scare department. Until the ending. This is one of those movies that just ends. I thought the third act was just starting but nope! It’s suddenly the closing credits. Nothing is resolved, nothing is built up, the movie just sort of stops. And that was disappointing because I was intrigued by what was going on in the film and wanted some answers. Sinful’s third act is wildly unsatisfactory. And it doesn’t even feel intentional. The ending feels more like they ran out of budget and just decided that this is how the movie ends now.

There was a period of maybe 25 minutes where I was really rooting for Sinful. Despite a low budget and some questionable acting, there were some ideas here and the film managed to drum up some intrigue. I had a lot of theories about what was going on. Is this a mental breakdown? Is this a subversion of the invasion thriller where the home invaders are the ones being tormented? Or, maybe the women are in hell or purgatory? But the rushed, nothing of an ending really ruined any goodwill I had about this movie. There’s potential here and the film is not an entire write-off but it’s too disappointing for me to recommend to anyone either.

Overall rating: 2.8/10

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