Realm of Souls

This is the dumbest movie I've ever just listened to. Hamburger The Motion Picture at least kept me entertained.

A group of 8 travels around Georgia filming haunted sites. They are also looking for a group of friends who did the same but vanished. The journey takes us to some cemeteries in Savvanah, the Georgia Guidestones, and finally the The Devil's Tramping Grounds where they set up camp.

They quickly find the footage left by the previous group. On it they see various mysterious events and people. It is said that if someone or something spends the night in the center ring of the The Devil's Tramping Grounds it either disappears or ends up somewhere else. The guy in charge orders the group to split and to start looking...at night. What he expects them to find who knows. Of course the only thing they find is trouble.

Realm of Souls--what a great title for a horror movie--is a found-footage type film but filmed in hybrid format. Some of it is of course in low-def POV style, the rest in normal-def third person. We get the obligatory and pointless crappy grainy green nightvision, even though both crews had professional lighting with them. And also surprisingly some red vision when we see things from the point of view of the villains, who for some reason strapped a bunch of cameras on their bodies. The cast is rather huge and mostly non-descript. There isn't much of a lead character. Acting is all over the place ranging from good to terrible. There's some gore, some violence, some nudity. When there's dialogue, it's good, natural, smart, and even had one line that had me laughing out loud. But once the action starts, dialogue is reduced to a minimum. It takes about an hour for the action to start and another 45 minutes for all if it to "resolve," even though there isn't much of a resolution. The explanation of what is going on could have been presented in a much more striking way instead it's mentioned cursorily.

One has to give credit to the director/writer/editor/etc. who was involved in every aspect of the movie, because as far as these awful POV movies are concerned, Realm of Souls is alright, even more so considering it's a low-budget movie. I particularly appreciate the interesting locations that I've never heard about before. They could have easily edited out 15 minutes or so to make for a tighter more exciting movie. Without the grainy green POV nonsense they would have had altogether a stronger movie. This a case of a smart and competent crew, dealing with a low budget and an overly ambitious script.

The story is a multi-layered amalgamation of traditional third person point-of-view, found footage and supernatural-with the classic killer-in-the-woods amping things up. It sounds complicated, and a bit too much, and in most cases these attempts are just that. There is often incoherent story arcs, schizophrenic scene changes, etc., something that Smith managed-for the most part-to avoid with "Realm Of Souls". The story manages to stay together and move forward as intended. There are some sticky points that sort of irked me, the constant switching between the genre film styles at this rate of transition does distract some from the intense chilling atmosphere at times.

The other aspect of "Realm Of Souls" that was a bit bothersome was the ineffectual supernatural characters, and the fact that the first forty minutes – after an awesomely gratuitous opening sequence-feel flat and seemed to drag on too long. Other than that there is so many more things to like about this one. The fact that Chase Smith is able to make this amount of film stylizing, and different horror elements string together is a sign of real talent and story telling. The cast give decent performances for the most part, bringing the characters closer to "believable". There are times that many of the cast get shaky and lose the drama in several scenes, but it is inconsistent, which never makes the film un-watchable.

The special effects and creature make-up both are nicely accomplished through practical and standard CGI-only what is necessary to tell the supernatural aspect of the story. There is plenty of gore, blood splatter, and screams in "Realm Of Souls" to entertain most horror fans, provided you get past the cinematic choices that Smith takes to bring this nightmare to life. I hung in there and I am glad. Although the points I mentioned that bothered me-really bothered me, every time the dark, creepy horror took over in the film I felt satisfied. The kills are delightful in this one. Blunt, visceral, and gruesome.

Overall "Realm Of Souls" is a worthy effort to create a more interesting found footage ghost story. Chase Smith takes a chance and on many levels it works to his good. The story is fluid, layered, and dark. The blood and guts get a B from me, although I think he could have upped the ante with more graphic, splatter flick kill sequences. The soundtrack is hit or miss with some good instrumental and music choices pushing against a few really bad ones that just didn't fit the scene or enhance the moment, other than that "Realm Of Souls" is one that I will watch again.

WTF do boob shots and idiotic jokes about glory holes have to do with hauntings and paranormal activities? Who made this turd; a 10 year old kid who found his dad's secret stash of old Playboy and Hustler magazines?

Take a cast of random people, none of whom can act worth a lick, and turn them lose with video cameras on the road shooting an idiotic travel log, and give them a script and dialogue worthy of little kids who learned how much fun it is to say "dirty words" for the first time, and you end up with "Realm of Souls". This movie is an embarrassment to other bad movies, and anyone who has anything whatsoever with the production and distribution of it should be banned from the film industry altogether. Yes, this movie is THAT bad.

Very confusing movie to follow. Bad plot and poorly executed. Except for the plentiful scenes of gratuitous nudity-a total waste of time.