Courtney Paige

(On Cable TV, February 2022) Most of the movies you’ll never see are those that fail to fulfill their potential. They’re inert, perhaps bolstered by a few good technical qualities, but otherwise singularly uninvolving compared to what they could and should have been. They don’t catch anyone’s attention, and sink away from memory and distribution channels. So it is that The Sinners, in getting interested in a clique of mean girls styling themselves after the seven deadly sins in a small religious high school, could have gone in any number of really interesting directions—some of them as wild as could be imagined. But as the dark dour tone of the first minutes suggests, it rather settles for a trite slasher thriller in which the girls are killed one after another. If you’re looking for levity or entertainment, forget it: this is all meant to be dark and rather depressing. The cinematography isn’t bad at all, especially considering the usual low budget of a Canadian horror film, but it’s all in one monotonous tone that leaves much potential untapped. The casting isn’t diverse enough to compensate for a flat screenplay that doesn’t do enough to distinguish the seven girls… or make us care about it all. By the time The Sinners unspools its final twists meant to be shocking, the best it can get is a bored shrug. First-time writer-director Courtney Paige gets a few things right, but doesn’t fulfill her potential, nor can create much excitement along the way. Too bad—there’s quite a bit of potential left on the table and the result is much duller than it should have been.