Wes Craven is the master of horror, or so the case for this movie says. Sure, he's masterminded some classic movies, but that doesn't mean he has consistently been the master of horror throughout his life. It certainly doesn't mean he is now.
My Soul To Take is Craven's first film in five years, and the hiatus was clearly not spent honing his skills. I reckon he all but gave up on film-making until he had a bout of dementia and decided to make a movie that was a bit like Scream but with some supernatural shit thrown in. But let me explain.
Actually, i'm not sure I can explain. But here goes. Our movie begins with a woman watching a news report saying that a serial killer is around, and forensic technicians have managed to zoom in on a video of the killer holding a weapon to find a word carved into it. Why you need to be trained as a forensic technician to zoom in on a video, I don't know. But i'm sure this isn't a relevant plot point.
Oh wait, it is, twenty seconds later. Some guy finds the blade in his workshop and wonders how the hell it got there. So do we, he looks nice enough. But then he starts talking in all different voices and it becomes apparent thats he's a bit mental and has various personalities inside him. He calls his psychiatrist, the psychiatrist sends help, but they guy still managed to murder his wife. Oh dear. Anyways, the police show up, kill him, but he's not dead, so he kills some more people, some other people kill him, but he's still not dead, and he gets put in an ambulance.
With me so far? This has all happened within the first five minutes. It's, needless to say, a bit rushed. So then the paramedic looking after him says "You know what? I'm from Haiti, and there they say that multiple personalities are actually multiple souls. Just sayin'". So everything's explained. If it's what's belieived in Haiti, it's just the truth. Oh wait, the guy wakes up, attacks more people, and then actually dies. OR DOES HE?
Well, he does for 16 years at least, 'cause that's where the story takes us next. We are introduced to the main character, named "Bug" for some reason, probably so he can be a likeable misfit that we can identify with. He is one of the "Riverton Seven", the seven babies that were born on the day that the previously mentioned serial killer died. Therefore they are all likely to be killed by the undead "Riverton Ripper" unless they perform some kind of ritual. Of course, the ritual gets broken up by police, so people are all like "Oh shit, he's coming"
What follows is a pretty standard slasher film that ism ade unique by being mixed up with some of the weirdest stereotyped characters and high school scenarios that i've seen. The conversations are weird, there's some plot tangent about a condor that doesn't really go anywhere, and there's some kind of mob rule set up at the school run by a girl called "Wasp" where people are administered punches of varying values in order to keep them in their place. Guess what, that doesn't really go anywhere either.
All this random shit going on while people are getting slashed by the Ripper, who has apparently come back from the dead. I guess Craven wrote a load of rambling nonsense so that he didn't have to think up interesting settings for people to be killed in, or ways to actually make it look effective and not use CGI pools of blood. Anyway, it all comes to a head eventually, and we find out the truth behind the Ripper, but that in itself is not without confusion. Turns out *SPOILERS!* that the when the Ripper died, each of the souls he had within him got transferred into the Riverton Seven babies that were born. Whaddya know, turns out Haiti are right about everything. Anyways, one of the souls was pretty bad, so that's the one that's killing people.
So it's like Scream. With souls. Maybe if there wasn't so much thrown in about souls there could have been more time to put in some things that made it a decent movie. I guess Craven was trying to do something different, but it justs come off as a completely unnecessary plot point. But then again, I guess it fits with the movie, which comes off as completely unnecessary in general.
My rating: 1/5
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