The 2010 Wes Craven offering My Soul to Take appears to the be the film that critics love to hate. Almost more than Cursed.
Written and directed by “tongue-in-cheek” horror master Wes Craven, My Soul to Take opened to almost universal pans. No-one, it appears, liked the film and critics united in an effort to slam this film. As a huge Wes Craven (and fan of all the Screams) I am amazed at the amount of “Craven-bashing” that took place when this film premiered.
It is almost like a rerun of Craven’s other film, Cursed; which to be fair was a pretty messy affair (being re-shot no less than 3 times) and critics again rallied to beat Craven metaphorically about the face and eyes in their rush to show their hatred for this film. I waited for the film to be released on DVD and watched it.
I liked it.
So when critics slammed the s**t out of My Soul to Take, I withheld my judgement (as usual) until I’d seen it. Unsurprisingly, it was good. So good, in fact, I bought a Blu-ray copy of the film. So while I have to restrain myself from giving the middle finger of disdain to the world’s film critics, I have no problem with sending a huge raspberry their way.
the cast
Max Thieriot is Bug
John Magaro is Alex
Denzel Whitaker is Jerome
Shareeka Epps is Chandele
Frank Grillo is Paterson
Dennis Boutsikaris is Principal Pratt
The Plot:
On the night that an almost unstoppable serial killer with a split-personality is seemingly dispatched, 7 babies are born in the local hospital. 16 years later on their birthday, they are all hunted down by the presumed dead serial killer and one boy, Adam ‘aka Bug’ (Thierot), finds out that his dad was the serial killer. Adam must figure out who is killing all his peers and stop him or her.
The Device
*Warning: this could be seen as a spoiler.*
All My Soul to Take has action that hinges on the device of “soul eating” and that when a person dies their soul is consumed by their killer. Apparently, when the original serial killer died, his soul was split into 7 parts and each baby born on that night took a portion.
The Twist
The killer isn’t who you (repeatedly) think it is.
The Verdict
My Soul to Take is honestly not as bad as the critics would have you believe. Okay, so some of Craven’s sly humour is missing here. The overall plot is not too complex and basically folks, if you’re expecting another version of the Scream verse; you’re going to be disappointed. It’s not as clever as Scream or Cursed (which I liked remember) so be prepared.
It does feature another “superhuman” Big Bad that is fairly impressive. So overall, I really cannot understand the total lack of love that this film gets
I would have to give My Soul to Take a solid 4 out of 5 stars just for the split-personality angle and the 7 souls schtick. A good popcorn munchin’ film with solid performances by all.
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