1.75 STARS: "Pin's the best friend you've ever had!!!" -Leon
A Customer Review by HM
"Pin" is a nice psychological thriller although not a true horror film in the strict sense of the term. Basically, "Pin" is about a very strange family, much like my ex-wife's family and that is no lie. At any rate, the father (a physician) of this strange family seems to have some difficulty communicating with his children in the conventional way. Therefore, he creates an alternate entity or person named "Pin" who is really nothing more than a model in a doctor's office. However, Pin, the person, takes care of unenviable tasks like talking to the kids about sex and other sensitive issues. The problem here is the psychological development of the children.
While Ursula develops rather nicely except for maybe an all too active libido, Leon fails to progress in his development. In fact, Leon becomes attached to and obsessed with Pin, and refuses to allow the idea that Pin does not really exist to enter his head. So, instead of dealing with reality as it is, Leon remains in this imaginary world of Pin. In a sense, what we have here is a deviation from the movie "Psycho" where Leon ends up giving half of his life to Pin much the same way Norman Bates gave half of his life to his dead mother. Obviously, Leon suffers from severe emotional and mental distress. Ultimately, Leon becomes a classic paranoid schizophrenic, and after his parents' death, Leon becomes determined to make Pin into part of the family as he moves Pin in with him and his sister. In Leon's mind, Pin is as much a part of the family as Mom, Dad, Ursula or himself. As adults, Ursula has developed well, but Leon has serious mental problems, and has degenerated in his emotional and psychological development.
When things begin to threaten Leon's and Pin's little world, Leon would always go to Pin for advice, much the same way a son would go to his father for advice. After the death of his parents, Leon actually gives Pin even more of an identity by dressing him in clothes, giving him a wig and so on and so forth. While Leon is unable to deal with reality, Ursula wishes to lead a normal life, and when she begins to date Stan, Leon and Pin take action, but not enough action to make this movie into a "horror movie" in my opinion! In other words, "Pin", while somewhat stylish and imaginative, lacks in substance what "Psycho" clearly possesses.
That being said, "Pin" is a nice little suspense flick that examines the darkness inside the unconscious mind. In "Pin", there are some scary moments I guess you could say as Pin is somewhat creepy in his own right by his very existence and for what he represents in Leon's mind. Leon is a very sick boy, and he seems to have a rather sick sense of poetry that is rather dark and depraved. The plot in "Pin" is pretty good for a suspense movie, and the mainframe of a potential horror movie is present. However, "Pin" fails to develop into the horror movie that it could have become. There is clearly not enough violence and horror in "Pin" to call it a pure horror movie. Leon, while somewhat creepy in all his craziness, is not a good nor a pure horror movie villain. Unlike Norman Bates, Leon's prowess as a horror movie is insecure whereas Norman Bates proves his prowess as a horror movie several times in "Psycho". While "Pin" seems to borrow some of psychological elements from "Psycho" and there are some parallels between Leon and Norman, Norman Bates is clearly much more dangerous than Leon as "Psycho" is clearly a horror movie in ever sense of the word whereas "Pin" seems to stall at the fork in the road at the point where it could go the horror movie route or play the suspense chiller.
The acting in "Pin" is average to slightly above average, and this movie will keep you interested until the very end because you want to know what's going to happen to Leon and Pin. However, "Pin" is the kind of movie that you probably want to watch just one time and does not hold up well to repeated viewings mainly because the action, horror and violence, which as a general rule and at least to some degree is necessary to the makings of a good horror movie, is simply not prevalent enough in this movie to make it into a good horror movie...while there are some exceptions to this general rule, "Pin" does not have enough atmosphere, style or substance to be considered one of them.