Scissors is a 63 minute slog of a movie that breaks most of the cardinal rules of filmmaking & storytelling. Written & directed by Harry Sparks, this film stars a handful of the biggest names currently in the adult film industry, as of 2023. As such, sadly the performances are weak at best & extremely wooden or stilted at worst. The only one who stood out to me was Alex Coal, who played the psychiatrist Dr Jane Bates, who managed to shine comparatively speaking in the brief moments we get to see her. But anyone would be hard pressed to perform or make sense of the inane, meandering script this movie offers. One of the biggest rules of storytelling is "show, don't tell." Yet this film elects to advance the story more often than not y having the characters tell us something important happened. Worried about a insane serial killer clown? Don't worry! The police arrested him breaking into someone's house. He's in jail now. (Almost verbatim what's said in the film) Gee, it would've been more interesting to see that actually happen, movie! It opens on stock footage of a carnival with the caption "Hinsdale County Fair 2019," only to then jump to 2023 in Los Angeles, CA to witness the first proper kill of the film with Tiffany (Katie Morgan). Followed by yet another time jump to "Present Day" Los Angeles, CA, where we find our protagonist Courtney (Jill Kassidy) in therapy with the aforementioned Dr Bates (Alex Coal). The movie follows as Courtney recounts the horrific events that lead to hear being there in Dr Bates' office, having survived the killer clown Scissors. However, instead of clearly defining every character & their relationship to each other from the outset, the movie opts instead to just randomly introduce a character only for them to get murdered off by Scissors within a few minutes. A series of scenes continue like that, with Scissors killing people & Captian Noonan (James Bartholet) is made so incompetent by the lackluster script that he, like the audience, are desperately trying to connect the dots & make sense of what is going on. Why is Scissors only targeting sex workers? Why is he targeting Courtney? Is Courtney a sex worker? Why was there a significant time jump between Scissors' first kill in 2019 & his second kill in 2023? Why is Courtney mote worried about Scissors than any other person in LA? NONE of these question will be answered, so don't go looking for any. As if all this wasn't bad enough, most of the scenes are poorly lit, poorly framed, and poorly mic'd. The characters seem to meander around in each scene in darkness. So many times in this film, the shots just appear boring and uninspired, adding nothing to an already dull film. And the sound is everywhere. Most of the time, it sounds like whoever has the mic is holding so far away it barely picks up the already muted performances of the stars. Other times, especially the college classroom scene initially, we can hear the distinct sound of everything in Courtney's backpack. All of these leads to a final scene twist that MAKES NO NARRATIVE SENSE based on eveything we've seen in the film so far! It's basically insulting from a simple logic standpoint & feels like it was tacked on for pure shock value & possible sequel bait. While I appreciate anyone who puts in their all to make a movie of their own, this script needed extensive revisions & additions before it was made. Ask friends to read your script & give notes. This feels like they made a series of kill scenes with a killer clown, then figured out the plot later. And if you are going to cast adult film stars, at least pick the ones who have energy, charisma, & can act! I personally think Alex Coal would've been better suited for lead Courtney. Regardless, while I commend the effort, the final cut of this killer clown slasher is dead on arrival.
