13 Sins | Film review - A fiendishly grisly game whose players can only lose | Movie Talk | What's on TV

(Image credit: Michele K. Short)

Darkly comic and occasionally very gory, this remake of 2006 Thai horror thriller 13: Game of Death plunges Mark Webber’s cash-strapped salesman into a fiendishly grisly game after a mystery caller offers him increasing sums of money for completing 13 tasks. The initial assignments – killing a fly and then eating it are the first two – are bizarrely petty, but the tasks become more and more gruesome as the game advances.

The macabre premise of 13 Sins quickly grabs our attention and things then move with such remorseless pace that there’s barely time to question the story’s logic. Fortunately, Webber’s hapless protagonist hangs on to his essential decency throughout his ordeal, which means we’re rooting for him to survive.

Certificate 15. Runtime 88 mins. Director Daniel Stamm

13 Sins is showing tonight on Sky Movies Premiere at 12.30am and is available on DVD & Blu-ray from Entertainment One.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTNtyJIKTXk

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.