My Soul to Take

A lot of reviewers compared Wes Craven's early work to My Soul To Take and came to the conclusion the early work was better. I can't disagree with that. The Hills Have Eyes or the Scream series were better but it's clear Wes Craven has a similar type of stories. The whole series of Nightmare On Elm Street that I rewatched a while ago didn't age that well but when those came out I did enjoy them. My Soul To Take doesn't have that effect on me. I watched it but found it a bit boring, just not that exciting or scary. It will for sure not become one of the "classics" like the early ones did. I already forgot everything about it and I just watched it yesterday.

I was damn near excited to finally see another Wes Craven film on the big screen! So, I gladly walked into the midnight screening of, "My Soul to Take." And? I left completely disappointed. It's sad to say but I believe this to be one of Craven's worst movies. Why you ask? I'll do my best to tell you why. My Soul to Take starts off with a man finding out that he's the Riverton Ripper by finding the killer's signature knife hidden in his garage. Oh, and we as an audience find out that he has multiple personalities through a very confusing WTF moment. He then unknowingly takes the knife to his pregnant wife, to himself, and almost to his daughter but the cops gun him down. While they take him to the hospital, the ambulance crashes and he escapes and supposedly dies. Flashforward sixteen years and we find that the Riverton Ripper legend is a celebrated holiday amongst the young children, seeing as how seven of those teenagers were born the night he supposedly died. I think you can see where this is going... Anywho, I did my best to try and enjoy this movie but no matter how hard I tried, there always seemed to be something in the movie that made me dislike it even more. It feels like someone came up to Craven while he was writing and said, "You know, we got to appeal to today's audience so.... write the characters like this." And yadda, yadda, yadda. Anyone who's anyone knows that Wes Craven is the Father of today's horror film tactics but it seems that this film is dry when it comes to those tactics. This film wasn't even scary, spooky, or suspenseful in any way. It was downright confusing as hell and suffered the one thing that horror movies suffer today: I didn't give a rats ass about these character. Hell, as soon as you're introduced to them, you want them to die! Hell, you probably might want to kill them yourself! I'm definitely going to make light of one scene where a blind kid on his death bed goes into a 5 minute monologue of how he got stabbed. What's funny about this is that he somehow climbed up the side of a house, crawled through a window, hid in a closet, and attacked the main character mistaking him for the killer..... all while blind. And he takes 5 minutes to discuss this and dies. Wow... where to begin? You know what, I'll leave it at that. This plot was congested with confusing story lines, bad acting (except for the sister named Fang), and an even more confusing pay off. I never thought I'd say this but I believe Craven has definitely lost his horror touch. If anything though, this is definitely worth a rental. Oh, and before I finish this review, let me tell you here and now that this is among one of the three movies this year with the WORST 3D conversions. The latter being Clash of the Titans and the Last Airbender. This movie's 3D serves no purpose whatsoever. So, to save a few bucks, see it in 2D. Or don't see it at all. Trust me, you're not missing anything.

RATING - 5 OUT OF 10.

Wes Craven has had a really spotty career, full of ups and downs. I was a bit surprised by MSTT, because it seemed to be far more derivative and unimaginative than I was expecting. This certainly isn't a bad movie, but it was disappointing, especially for Wes Craven. If it had been some unknown director's debut, I'd probably be more forgiving. However, I expect better from Wes Craven, even after sitting through Deadly Friend and Shocker. Like Deadly Friend and Shocker, there were aspects of this movie that I did like, but not enough that I'd give it a good rating. I think that this movie was made for a younger, less jaded demographic (ie, teenagers). For adults, it's just going to seem a bit tired, clichéd, and a retread of several of his older movies (most especially Scream). I was never a huge fan of Scream in the first place, but it was better than this. I'd say that MSTT is worth a 5/10 for adults, while teenagers may enjoy it more (6/10).

Despite numerous warnings to avoid this film, I shelled out my money, including the ridiculous $3 extra for 3D glasses, figuring, it's Wes Craven, how bad can it be? Well, the answer is, extremely, horribly, atrociously bad. MSTT made Shocker look like Citizen Kane. I've seen better efforts at the After Dark Horrorfests and coming from The Asylum on SyFy.

MSTT had a script and dialog of the level of some fresh-out-of-some-two-bit-drama-school reject, not of a nearly 40-year veteran of filmmaking. Half the dialog made no sense whatsoever, and the emotions of the actors was usually misplaced.

While the story had promise, the execution failed completely. At first, the action seemed forced to get to the central elements Craven was looking for, then the resolution bogged down in complete incoherence.

Craven can't blame some one else's script or studio insistence on cuts, 'cause this atrocity was all his. If this is the best he can do, he should retire. He's proved he has nothing left to add to horror.

And if my negative comments still don't dissuade you from seeing this atrocity, make sure you at least seek out 2D instead of the extra money for 3D, because...

THERE WAS NO Discernible 3D IN THE FILM WHATSOEVER!!!! Scenes which should have popped out of the screen, such as the ambulance crash, DIDN'T! It's quite obvious the studio realized what a piece of crap MSTT was and how it would plummet in ticket sales once work of mouth got out, so they did post-filming 3D conversion to bilk the poor suckers who went to see it opening weekend out of a few dollars more.

The only reason I didn't rate this a 1 is because, sadly, I have seen worse. But this one should be avoided at all costs.

2/10

Whew.....everyone's a critic. If you like scary movies....strange, scary movies.....strange, scary movies with a plot.....strange, scary movies with a plot and fairly good ending.....then get the popcorn and have a good time with this one.

Look.....if I took every movie I have ever seen so seriously I had to dump on it more than enjoy it. Well.....there would be a lot of movies I would never watch. My Soul To Take is a good movie. It keeps you wondering, guessing and a little annoyed you didn't see it coming.

Admittedly, I do scroll through the reviews to get an idea of how people viewed the movie and how they rated it.

I have my own 5 Star system which got this film a 4.5.

If you are new to IMDb.....never, ever take the scoring system to heart. Even a really BAD film based on reviews will perk my interest to watch it and see for myself. For those of you who use IMDb regularly.....this movie didn't earn the 4.7 it got.

I would have said 8 out of 10 personally......but then that is me.

Please don't throw this one away based on critics who "know the price of everything and the value of nothing"....Zonker from his guru days.

......enjoy......Cookie Q(:-}