Soultaker

In his book "I Hated, Hated, HATED This Movie" Roger Ebert recalls a time when he and late partner Gene Siskel viewed a particularly bad clunker. To add insult to injury, the third reel of the film had gone missing and they had to return a few days later to see it. The elusive footage was just as bad as the rest, but as Siskel observed it wouldn't have helped the product any: "If the third reel had been the missing footage from 'The Magnificent Ambersons,' this movie still would have sucked."

I am, I will confess, one of those who has not seen the uncut version of "Soultaker" (having been unable to locate it on television or rental shelves and having other things I'd rather spend my money on). But I find it hard to believe that any amount of additional footage would vastly improve on what I've already seen.

To be fair this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the worst film to be the subject of a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" episode--indeed, compared to such horrors as "Hobgoblins" and "The Wild World of Batwoman" it's downright marvellous. The storyline (an Angel-of-Death figure is assigned to collect the souls of some youngsters and ends up being obsessed with one of them) is promising--shades of Cocteau's "Orpheus"--and there are some nice moments of symbolism (the butterfly brooch was a nice touch). But overall the film falls short in several areas. To wit:

~The Soultaker--or "The Man" as he's billed--has the most potential of any character in the piece. Such parts are best when they come off as creepy or charasmatic, preferably both. Sadly Joe Estevez is neither, and in several scenes looks more confused than anything else.

~Vivian Shilling, who does double duty as screenwriter and as Natalie, the girl Estevez's character flips for. A writer casting themselves in their own work is not exactly a bad thing--take Mel Brooks, for example. But if I had been in Shilling's shoes, I would have written better dialogue for myself than "How is that possible?" and "I don't understand any of this."

~Zach, the would-be hero of this piece. Zach is the sort of protagonist who's so whiny and ineffective that you end up rooting for the bad guy--or you would be, if the bad guy wasn't played by Joe Estevez. We're told Zach loves Natalie, but it's a bit hard to swallow when his defense of his undying passion to a skeptical friend basically consists of "You don't know her!"

~The entire rich-kid/poor-kid thing between Zach and Natalie, which never really resonates other than as a reason to explain why these two nice young kids haven't got together yet.

~The bathroom scene. The fact that the Soultaker takes a female form to spy on the scantily-clad Natalie isn't so awful. The fact that the female form is that of Natalie's mother throws a very disturbing incestuous angle on the whole proceedings that it's just best to avoid examining it altogether.

Another time, another place, "Soultaker" could have been an excellent film. Sadly, that's not here and now.

Soultaker is not as bad a film as some would make it out to be, but it is still not good. The directing is well-done, and I think one of the better areas of the film. Joe gives a good performance; all the other actors are decent, save for David Shark, who is sub-par.

The technical aspects of the film aren't bad. The dialogue is hackneyed at spots, but I think the biggest weakness of the film is its pacing. It starts out well; introducing the characters and setting up the premise, but hits its biggest snag halfway through. The film suddenly stagnates as the characters sit around a house. It appears to be trying to build tension, but instead it's boring and drawn-out. It then picks up the pace again but quickly loses it during the incredibly long hospital sequence at the end. By that time the audience has already figured out where the plot is going and it's all just stretched out to be exhaustingly long.

All in all, despite its clearly small budget, it's the underlying screenplay, not the technical aspects, that hurt this movie the most.

This really isn't such a bad little movie. The basic story is quite interesting: five teenagers on their way home from a summer festival crash their car and awaken to find themselves unharmed. However, one of them is missing, and a mysterious man in black is stalking the rest of them down one by one and seemingly killing them. What the kids don't know, but soon come to realize, is that they are lost souls, thrown from their bodies at the moment of the accident. Their physical comatose selves are in the hospital, and the two remaining survivors have only a short time left to get back into their bodies before the Angel of Death comes to claim them.

A low budget, bad 80s music and an overly drawn out ending are the films only major flaws, but the acting is quite good and the story (written by star Vivian Schilling) is well thought out. Schilling went on to write a book entitled "Quietus" which is a sort-of sequel to this film.

Worth checking out at least once, with or without the MST3K commentary.

"Soultaker" is not a good film--that I won't even try to argue. However, I know bad films and currently have reviewed more bad films than anyone on the planet. And, compared to the many, many horrible movies I've subjected myself to, it just isn't THAT bad. So why, then, is it currently #40 on IMDb's infamous Bottom 100 List. In other words, of the thousands and thousands and thousands of eligible films on the site, only 39 have a lower overall score than this one! This means it's horrible, right? No. This means it was featured on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and fans of the show assumed it was horrible because it was on the show. Sometimes movies on "MST3000" are bad or sub-par and that is all. This would also explain why "Girl With the Gold Boots" is also on the list, even though it's among the director's BEST! Too often people just assume the films they make fun of are that bad--but seeing it without the running comments reveals that SOME of the film isn't bad- -such as the main plot idea.

The plot is VERY simple. A total jerk is driving like a nut and wrecks his car--killing himself and the three others in the car. As their bodies are lying dead in the wreck, the souls of the four are alive and well and walking about--though no one can see them. Soon, a guy who looks almost exactly like an old version of Emelio Estevez shows up and starts sucking souls out of the four bodies. He dispatches one but stops when he sees the girl--she is the reincarnation of a girl he loved when he was alive--before he became a grim reaper! During his hesitation, the three manage to escape and run from him. This is funny, as Estevez' character NEVER runs and they constantly run--yet he always catches up to them--just like the guy from Halloween!! Can the three manage to elude the reaper and manage to be reunited with their bodies?

The film is funny to watch because of the clothes, BIG hair and styles of 1990. And, the acting isn't very good. And, it's a chance to see Joe Estevez, the black sheep of the Sheen/Estevez clan because he is a politically conservative guy--unlike his older brother Martin Sheen. But the idea of the plot is interesting--even if most of the rest of it isn't. Not bad enough to make any worst of list--but bad enough to laugh at and marvel at the amateurish way it was made.

OK, I saw this film through Mystery Science Theater 3000, but I did see the movie, so I figured I would leave a comment on it. I just love once again how Joe gets stuck with the crummy roles while his brother and nephew's are just getting the Oscar winning roles left and right. Soultaker is technically what you would call the movie that was meant to be good. It seemed like the director and actors just took this movie extremely seriously and had very cheesy effects, a story that didn't make much sense, and not to mention pretty crummy acting abilities. This is one of my favorite MST3K episodes, simple because a lot of what they mention is what we are thinking throughout the film and I'll explain why in a moment.

Natalie and Zach are a couple who broke up and are now trying to work things over. But since Zach is in upper lower class and Natalie is in middle class, it just ain't gonna work. But on the way home, they and Zach's friends get into a car accident and now the angel of death/Soultaker is after them to meet his quota of soultaking. But also it seems like he's had some kind of other life relationship with Natalie and just can't seem to move on. So now Natalie and Zach must race against the ever appearing five million times a minute clock to save their souls and lives.

Well, I guess Zeppelin was wrong when he sang that there was a stairway to Heaven, I wonder if Black Sabbith was wrong too, lol. Basically there are a lot of plot holes in this movies, like no one can see the characters and they can't be killed, yet somehow they can still press buttons and open doors? The Angel of Death had a very strange face and was a bit distracting from the story itself. Soultaker was just a lousy film that was rushed and makes you just feel so bad for Joe, the under-appreciated Sheen/Estovez brother.

2/10