Review of 13 Sins (2014) by Waleed A — 24 May 2017

Wow, very unexpected and intriguing premise. entertaining throughout. The story went in lots of crazy directions with memorable ideas. The tone was perfectly set with great music. good performances by the main character and his brother. lots of parts where I was able to feel the characters' emotions.

SPOILERS.

The spins were all great, and there were like 4. I knew something was up so I wasn't fully surprised but they still got me good. The first one was his brother being the second player. I was thinking it would be someone we've seen but I did not suspect him and it was a pretty good twist, especially when I remembered the part about the police looking into him for exposing himself to a girl. It was set up for viewers to assume it had to do with his mental health. The next twist was when their father revealed that he played the game when they were children, and the family member he killed was their mother, by purposely crashing into a light pole when he knew she never wore a seat belt. We heard earlier in the film about the car accident and suspecting the father was drunk. Also that the father became abusive after he became rich. The third twist was the cop being on their payroll and the investigation into the game being completely buried. I suspected that at one point, but began to trust him. And with all that had just happened in the climax, that twist still hit pretty hard. Finally, not really a twist, but the tease that the wife was now starting a new game gave me one last OMG moment. Even before all the twists I was considering giving it a 3.5, the twists just took it to a new level. On a side note, this film is very similar to Cheap Thrills in a lot of ways (2 viewings).