Take Two: My Soul to Take

My Soul to Take (2010)

Rating: R

Starring: Max Thieriot, John Magaro, Denzel Whitaker, Zena Grey

Director: Wes Craven

Chris’ Take: This movie did take my soul because I felt like I died a little bit inside every time someone spoke. This time around, Wes Craven disappointed me in almost every aspect of filmmaking. I really wonder why he waited to return to directing for this piece of garbage.

My Soul to Take is almost too confusing to explain. I don’t think I fully understand exactly what happened. There was some screaming, lots of running through the woods, every now and then you could hear what sounded like Darth Vader’s voice say something mildly messed up, and more running and tripping in the woods. For the sake of making a fool of myself trying to explain this worse than that here is the summary from IMDB: 

A serial killer returns to his hometown to stalk seven children who share the same birthday as the date he was allegedly put to rest.

For the intents and purposes of this review, that is all you need to know.

I can say that this is an original idea from Craven. At least he is not trying to remake things or do sequ…

Oh...yeah...that one

But, that is not to say that this idea wasn’t total crap. His directorial style seemed off as well as his writing. I think a major flaw in the film was the dialogue. Craven just can’t seem to be able to relate to his younger audience anymore like he did with Nightmare on Elm Street or Scream. I mean, one character said, “I will see you in two shakes!” What? Who knows that means? Fortunately, I knew what it meant because that is something that my Mom or Dad would say, since it came from their era. It means, “I will see you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” in case you were wondering.

The acting was atrocious, even for teenagers. Every line felt forced and none of the emotions or fear seemed real. I am trying to think of one person that did a decent job and it is escaping me. I was also surprised to see the Pittsburgh Steelers‘ Troy Polamalu playing the killer.

Tell me that isn't Troy underneat the make up.

None of the actors could make me care about any of these stupid characters, especially, the blind kid, played by Denzel Whitaker.

Not to be confused with either of these great actors.

He was on screen a total of about thirty seconds throughout the movie before he is killed near the end and they try to be all emotional about it. I forgot that he was even one of the seven people that “The Ripper” was trying to kill.

My (insert sarcastic tone) favorite part was when two people were stuck in a closet with the killer looking for them in the house. You see the shadow pass in front  of the door while the two people try to keep quiet. No more than a split second after the shadow passes the door they start talking in normal voices like the killer can no longer hear them because his shadow isn’t in front of the door.

Don’t even get me started on the cinematography. Not that the camera angles or anything were bad, but it was the 3D that bugged the crap out of me. It was blatantly post-production 3D and it was sloppy and inconsistent. I am absolutely convinced that there was a meeting in post production that went something like this:

Craven is at the head of the table, silent, hands folded in front of his face before he finally looks up and says, “I’ve made a huge mistake. This thing is going to tank. How can I still salvage some bank?”

 

After a long pause someone finally says, “We film stuff that is not in the movie, but looks cool to put in the previews.”

Craven nods and says, “Yes, good, we are thinking..”

 

Another says, “Well, Wes, we could just not let critics see it before it comes out.”

 

Craven strokes his stubble and gives a lopsided smile of mild agreement, but there is still an uneasy tension in the room.

 

Finally, Kurt, the bagel boy who is putting down napkins at the other end of the table says, “Why not whip up some random 3D shots, call it a 3D movie, and charge extra for the ticket? All the studios are doing it.”

 

All heads turn to this boy who they hadn’t even noticed for three years, because they just thought the bagels magically appeared, and stared.

Craven looks at the rest of his staff and says, “You’re all fired. Kurt you’re now my chief assistant.”

Boom! Cinematic gold…..except it is still a box office flop.

I really hope Craven can get back on his game for Scream 4. I liked the first two Scream movies and I look forward to a decent slasher film since there hasn’t really been one in a while. I know Craven has a gift for horror films, but it was distinctly lacking in My Soul. Plus, he needs to really go hang out in a high school, not like a creep or anything, and at least try to learn how people are talking these days. Or, he needs to have his horror films grow up, just like the majority of his audience has.

Characters: D-

Cinematography: B

Directing: C

Plot: D

Performances: F

Writing: F

OVERALL: D

Pac’s Take:

This film did an excellent job at making me think, not because it was intended to or because it was a good psychological thrill ride, but because I really needed to sit down and think in order to understand the plot of this film.  I’m going to try to lay it out for you as best I can; and if you’re worried about any spoilers, they might actually help you understand the film as you are watching it.

The film opens with a man, Abel Plainkoff who suffers from multiple personality disorder, or schizophrenia, or both (the movie obviously didn’t realize there was a difference) and appears to be the Riverton Ripper.  When the authorities come to capture the Plainkoff, he takes a few people with him (except for the voodoo EMT and skeptical police officer who miraculously survive) before the ambulance he’s in crashes and his body washes away in the river or mysteriously disappears.  Let me point out here that the voodoo EMT lady points out that some people refer to sufferers of MPD to have multiple souls not multiple personalities.  According to legend, the seven souls of Abel Plainkoff traveled into each of the children born that night (the Riverton 7), and on the day of their 16th birthday the Ripper will return to claim them.

Reads: My Soul to Take Kills Wes Craven's Credibility

Once the Riverton 7 start getting picked off one by one it is supposed to become a mystery as to whether or not the Riverton Ripper is still alive and has come back to claim the children, or the soul of the Ripper (one of the 7 souls in Plainkoff) has traveled into one of the children and that child is killing the others.  The film tries to lead you to believe the Ripper is the main character, Bug, leading up to the reveal at the end.

The killer is really this guy

This film had some great concepts that could have easily been adapted into a well crafted horror/suspense film had the concepts been more clearly defined in the script and on-screen.  I started to understand the intentions of Wes Craven more and more as I analyzed the film, and I liked where he was going with the idea (especially the part about Bug’s infatuation with the California Condor), unfortunately he never fully realized how to properly script that concept.

I mention the scripting of this movie often in my criticisms because, I believe that is what kept this film from being successful.  I truly love the work of Wes Craven, many of his films are an inspiration to me as a writer and I think he’s a pioneer of the horror genre; however, I think he passed the point where he can adequately write teenage dialogue, and it appeared his attempt to blend the supernatural with the slasher and keep the reveal a mystery muddled the story too much to where his original concept became unrecognizable.

This film actually gives me hope for April’s release of Scre4m.  Though the writing was poor in My Soul to Take (Craven has no writing responsibilities for the Scream franchise), there’s not much else to the movie I can complain about.  The cinematography was on point for a horror movie, Craven still is able to capture the landscape and express the crisp chilling sense of fear in the air.  The acting was strong as some points, and extremely poor at others (especially with the main character Bug), but that can be expected from unproven child actors.  Scre4m will boast a much more accomplished cast, many of whom already have developed characters in the franchise’s previous installments.

However, if Dimension Films decides sometime between now and April to convert Scream 4 to 3-D I will not be seeing it in theaters, despite my excitement, and will wait for the DVD release and probably find a way to watch it for free.  My Soul to Take was “the straw that broke the camel’s back” for me as far as 3-D is concerned.  Absolutely nothing in this movie needed to be 3-D, it was a complete waste and was probably only used to inflate box office prices because the studio knew the revenue would be poor.  This film reaffirmed my assumption that 3-D (at least converted 3-D) is just a gimmick to inflate sales and attract audiences, there has been NO cinematic value in any 3-D movie I’ve seen and I hope the medium dies just as it did in the 50’s and 80’s.  If I want to see a 3-D movie I’ll go to an amusement park, it’s like an epidemic that returns every 30 years to ruin what could be perfectly good movies.  I’d like to rant more about my distaste for 3-D but maybe I’ll save it for another post.

Here are my overall scores:

Characters: C- (names: D-, really Fang?)

Cinematography: B+

Directing: B-

Performances: C-

Plot: C

Writing: F

3-D: F.U.

Overall: D

OVERALL TAKE TWO GRADE: D