Sew Torn, on Shudder

If MacGyver and Rube Goldberg started a sewing circle, they would invite Barbara Duggen to join them. She can do almost anything with a needle and thread, except keep her late mother’s custom seamstress business afloat. A briefcase full of cash would certainly help, but no matter what choices she makes, someone always comes after her in Freddy Macdonald’s Sew Torn, which premieres today on Shudder.

After enduring the verbal abuse of her senior citizen bridezilla client, Duggen drives through the wreckage of a shootout between drug dealers. Instead of calling the police (or rather the Scandinavian village’s sole cop/justice of the peace/notary), she wires up the scene with thread, to finish them off. When the ambusher still survives, she carries him home, rigging him into an unlikely needle and thread pulley system. How does it end? Not well, as viewers know from the gruesome prologue montage, so the film rewinds to let Duggen chose two more alternatives.

Calling Sheriff Engel from the scene also turns into a nightmare for Duggen, because the eccentric peace officer immediately uncovers her plan to make off with the loot. For her third go-round, Duggen forms an alliance with Joshua Armitage, the bleeding and battered drug courier, who also happens to be the much-abused son of Hudson Armitage, the drug lord making each branching fork end so badly for her.

Frankly, some of Duggen’s threaded contraptions are a little too convoluted for viewers to fully comprehend the mechanics involved and a little too cute to take seriously. However, the ironic sense of humor adds a good deal saltiness. Regardless, it is inventive, which is cool.

Initially, Eve Connolly seems a little too reserved and mousy to lead the film, but she grows into the task as the film picks up momentum. K Callan is also rather amusing as the not-so-daft Sheriff, while John Lynch is quietly menacing as old man Armitage. Plus, the alpine-looking backdrop adds a surreal vibe.

Frankly, this is a perfect film for streaming. Macdonald’s screenplay, written with his father, [just plain] Fred Macdonald, has enough humor and novelty to feel new and different, which is arguably quite an achievement. It works enough to be amusing. Recommended for the curious, Sew Torn starts streaming today (11/1) on Shudder.