My Soul To Take (2010)

[TerrorScribe]

My Soul To Take (2010)

Written and Directed by: Wes Craven
Starring: Denzel Whitaker, Emily Meade, Jeremy Chu, John Magaro, Max Thieriot, My Nick Lashaway, Paulina Olszynski, Zena Grey
Running time: 107 minutes
Rating: R

Not all things get better with age. In fact, most things don't. With the exceptions of true love and a small handful of wines, things get worse, decay and die. It's a sad fact of life. "My Soul To Take", the latest from director Wes Craven, is another.

Here's the story: many moons ago, doting husband, schizophrenic and practicing serial killer Abel "The Ripper" Plankov kills his pregnant wife and attempts to kill his young daughter when he is gunned by police. Twice. However, being too crazy too crazy to die, he's taken away in an ambulance where he gets free again, causes the ambulance to crash and when the dust finally settles, he's disappeared. The attending paramedic (before she gets her throat cut) mentions that multiple personalities aren't just personalities, but extra souls and these extra souls live on. But with all this tragedy, there is joy: seven babies are born that night. Fast-forward 16 years and the "Riverton Seven" have grown up to be a fine set of clichés. You have the jock (Nick Lashaway), the object of the outcast hero's affection (Paulina Olszynsky), the sky pilot (Zena Grey), the artsy Asian kid (Jeremy Chu), the blind, black kid (Denzel Whitaker playing two stereotypes in one efficient package), the outcast hero (Max Thieriot) and his quirky friend (John Magaro). It turns out that every year on the anniversary of the Ripper's death/disappearance; they perform a "Push the Ripper Back into the River" ritual supposedly to keep the Ripper from coming back and killing those babies born that night. This year, Bug (the outcast hero) is the one to do the pushing - except he chickens out and can't do it. Not long after this, the first teen is killed: the Ripper has returned... or has he?

Let's be frank: "My Soul To Take" is not a good movie. Or maybe it used to be. Maybe it was a great movie back in 1984 when "A Nightmare On Elm Street" introduced us to the back from the dead killer who preyed on an exclusive group of teens. Maybe it was great back in 1996 when "Scream" revitalized the slasher genre with a knowing wink to the genre stereotypes. But in 2010, it's an endurance test that moves like a marathon runner with a broken leg and a club foot. Easily, this is the worst genre film I've seen this year. How do I come to that conclusion? Because when you're a horror legend like Wes Craven and you have a multimillion dollar budget and you're releasing during the Halloween season, it's not entirely unreasonable to expect someone to bring their A-game. To use a sports analogy, it's like having a talented football team that's supposed to complete for the Super Bowl but opens the season 1-3 (coughcoughCowboyscoughcough). When you have so much going for you, so much more is expected. And I feel that's the case here. Craven achieves nothing new, or even entertaining with this movie. It really feels like he put "Nightmare" and "Scream" in a blender, set it on frappe and then strained out all the best parts of each. The result was a bland, overlong study in what's wrong with the genre today: It is Exhibit A.

At least it wasn't in 3-D

Wait, it was in 3-D. Of course, you wouldn't know it by looking at it. Aside from one or two interesting perspective shots that really made it noticeable, you wouldn't know that this was a 3-D feature. That and the additional ticket cost. It is Exhibit B: the addition of an unnecessary element in order to jack up the price for the movie-goer.

"My Soul To Take", in light of the evidence, decidedly falls into the "Trick" category this Halloween season. It combines a weak script with the standard formula of "pretty but annoying kids getting killed," ponderous pacing and network TV gore to make not only a forgettable, but almost unforgivable film.

[Dr. Briggs]

It is supremely hard for me to judge this film... why? Because Wes Craven is a superb director when it comes to camerawork, building the feeling of horror and making very sympathetic characters (Characters are possibly the one reason why Cursed was any good)... but when it comes to pacing the action, and actually writing lines for said characters (not to mention directing their acting... oh God, their acting...), Wes fails and fails hard.

I'm not gonna lie, I loved about the last 45 minutes or so of this film. It shifted your perception on characters, established a boatload of suspense, enhanced the mystery aspect, delivered some jarring surprises, worked with the plotline in unexpectedly interesting ways, and (in my case) gave an ending that jarred a real emotional reaction...

But before that, my jaw nearly dropped at how much cheese and cliche the film could throw at us. In all honesty, I'm surprised anyone would make a film with such cheese in this day and age. The dialogue, whilst containing some gold nuggets that come back to make the climax great, are rather awkward, not to mention poorly delivered. The ripper himself despite being a very well-designed figure has the voice and often lines of, well, a parody, or at least a satire. I feel the intro should have been a much larger part of the film, established more about ripper's 7 personalities and built more suspense in less cliche ways.

Anyone notice how Bug's development kind of mirrors Alice's from Nightmare on Elm Street 4? Dunno if it's for the better or worse.

All in all I'd give this one a 4/10... best way I can explain that is that it started with a 5; all the disappointment throughout the film ripped off 3 points, but the mostly-excellent-somewhat-flawed ending easily puts 2 back. Had the film been well written, acted and paced enough to be "average," up unil the ending, the score would have easily been at least a 7, if not higher.

[Friday The 13th]

Now I am kind of scared to watch it. Then again you can just tell its a rip off from viewing the trailer.

[Chainsaw Brutality]

The only thing I liked about My Soul to Take is the premise or idea. However, the poor writing ruins an interesting character in "The Ripper". Can't leave out the acting and dialogue, which are both terrible. Also, it's apparent that the only reason this was in 3D was for $$. Nothing in the movie lends itself to 3D.

I agree, TS - this seemed better suited for the 90's. Craven really disappointed me with this effort, although, I like it slightly better than Scream 4.


That says alot about my feelings on both movies, which are forgettable.