O Guardião das Almas

(2001) Soulkeeper COMEDY HORROR

Although, the actual VHS case has a cool 3D cover on it, it's still a mediocre effort which is reminiscent of "Highway to Hell" made in 1991 because of it's laid back approach on the horror genre. Straight-to-rental but contains some familiar scenes to other films like "The Mummy" movies with Brendon Fraser and "From Dusk Til' Dawn". Written and directed by Darin Ferriola starring Rodney Rowland as Corey and Kevin Patrick Walls as Terrence, lightweight and sometimes clumsy thieves who're working together. They've just stolen a hat from some small museum that was supposed to be worn by Abe Lincoln and made some money out of it. They're then somehow get hired by a person who calls himself Mr. Pascal played by Brad Dourif, you know the guy who played Grima Wormtongue, the greasy snake guy from "The Lord Of The Ring" movies. Anyways, Mr. Pascal hires them to confiscate and steal some emblems as well as performing other tasks with reasons unbeknownst to viewers but has something to do with the reincarnation of a demon which has killed some ritualistic believers in the first few minutes, and also has the ability to possess other peoples human forms. Labelled as a light weight horror extravaganza which I think I only chuckled at least once throughout my entire experience since much of it is meandering. It has something do with the two stars entering what looked like the devil's brothel, unaware that the girls are really demons. I think the uncut TV version is slightly different than the VHS version for I'm not really sure since it was awhile ago since I had seen this.

I really wanted to like this film. The acting was above average. The photography and effects were nicely done. the only problem was...and it's a big one....the story was just plain dumb. It's a shame too because the actors worked hard to save this turkey, if only they had a better plot to work with. The overall story was not on par with the dialog. Some of the scenes were actually very funny. Others were just not. The little 12 year old kid in the bordello like place was really bad, certainly not funny. He must have been related to someone cause he sure couldn't act. Luckily he was only on screen for a short time.

The two male leads were pretty darn good, both had a nice comic flare. Made me wish they were in a better movie.

Would I recommend this film? Not when there are so many better ones out there.

This movie is an amusing homage to the 80's action-horror. It has a risible plot, poor special effects (The monsters are bad actors in ridiculous masks)and some decidely bad scripting..However it was a really fun experience, It made me feel like a kid again. It was an eighties film with better clothes! The two main characters worked well together, and had a good buddy-chemistry thing, some truly funny scenes (There's a scene where a demon turns into his mother during a sex act that's particulary good) Overall I'd say that if you want a good wry chuckle and a burst of nostaglia for those truly cheesy movies of the eighties watch it!

SOULKEEPER is about a pair of hapless thieves who accept a job from a Mr. Pascal (Brad Dourif), to steal a stone with magical properties.

It all sort of plays out like a mediocre episode of the old TALES FROM THE CRYPT from the early 1990's, full of blood, boobs, and the occasional laugh. The horror is humorous, and the humor is horrible. It seems pretty halfhearted as well.

MONSTER ALERT: If you're a monster fanatic and you want to see this movie because of the demon in the picture, then you'll want to know that it has about 4 seconds of screen time...

Watch out for the German version of Soulkeeper, it's disastrous. Whatever is funny about the English version is lost, because they use only two actors for the dubbing - and they only use two because they need a male and a female speaker. The male speaker at least makes an effort to speak in different voices (though he only comes about with French accents of varying severity), but the female speaker says lines like "run for your lives" with all the urgency and emotion of a cafe waitress at 1am asking, "You want sugar with that?", and always sounds the same. I couldn't say much about the dialogue, since I didn't compare the two versions, but the speakers will give you a real bad case of nausea. Still, it's good enough if you want to watch a C film and don't mind the abominable voices.