Stitch Head Review: Making Friends One Body Part at a Time

The opposite of love is not hate. It’s fear, or at least that’s the message of Stitch Head, a touching and funny addition to the shadow-drenched library of kid-friendly Halloween movies.

Maybe if the wild-haired and cackling Professor (voiced by Rob Brydon) had shown a little more love to his first creation, Stitch Head, a young boy quite literally Frankensteined together in Castle Grotteskew, everyone would be happier. Soft-spoken and a little sad, Stitch Head has become the guardian of all the other monsters brought to Almost Live (patent pending) by the mad scientist. The other creatures created by the Professor fall straight off the pages of one of those old monster-maker flip books, like the half shark/half caterpillar Steve, Octochicken (whose name tells you everything), and Creature (Joel Fry, Cruella, In the Earth), a furry, one-eyed, three-armed beast with a crocodile’s tail and an innocent smile. By comparison, Stitch Head could almost pass as a real boy, if it wasn’t for the fact he’s sewn together. His purpose is to educate most recently animated chimera about how to avoid people, because people become mobs and mobs tend to come to the castle wielding firebrands and pitchforks.

Voiced by Asa Butterfield (Hugo, the upcoming Our Hero, Balthazar), Stitch Head is a skinny little thing, threaded together and sighing at his lot in life, unaware really of how much he is ignored by his creator but pained by his loneliness. He’s primed to run away to join the circus: Luckily, the circus comes right to his front door, with ringmaster Fulbert Freakfinder (Seth Usdenov) promising that the crowds will love him.

The original graphic novel series – written by Guy Bass and illustrated by Pete Williamson – is charming and touching, and director Steve Hudson’s adaptation is best when it keeps close to the first volume. That’s both visually and narratively, as there are moments where the look of Stitch Head’s world doesn’t quite make sense. The castle and the town are clearly a classic Gothic realm of wood, stone, and strange angles, which makes the Lycra-wearing circus strong men feel out of place, as does Arabella (Tia Bannon), a smart-aleck girl from the village who appreciates Stitch Head for who he is. Where exactly does she get her sneakers from? Adding in a character design that looks like a rejected sketch from Turning Red becomes an unfortunate distraction.

Far closer to the slight and barely memorable Igor than a ghoulishly playful classic like Frankenweenie, and arguably a neighbor to the far sillier Hotel Transylvania series, Stitch Head never pretends it’s not bolted together from older, more monstrous movies. It’s simple fare, all resolved with the most unlikely needle drop in a horror-adjacent film since “Angel of the Morning” was cued up in It: Chapter 2. However, this time it seems like it’s supposed to be deliberately funny.

What Stitch Head mostly aims for and generally achieves is a warmth of comedy and emotion that will sit well with young audiences. Moreover, Hudson doesn’t feel the need to pamper parents with any over-the-kids-heads gags or horror references (well, except for what may be an accidental nod to Friday the 13^th Part 2 or maybe The Town That Dreaded Sundown). The core message that adulation is not the same as love is one that could resonate with younger audiences (and a few older ones too), as Stitch Head’s circus misadventures are shown to never come close to what the screwball likes of Creature and Steve can offer. Home truly is where the heart is, even if that heart was sewn in place in the lab.