Les âmes perdues

Look, I'm a sucker for a good eschatological/apocalyptic thriller. Something totally fascinates me about that stuff. After the sheer stupidity of the illogical 'Stigmata' and especially the lame-brained 'End Of Days', I had a lot of hope for 'Lost Souls'. Sadly, it fails to deliver. Hollywood disappoints yet again!

Winona Ryder plays a troubled young woman who believes that Satan is planning on being reborn in human form, and kicking some Christian ass. Ben Chaplin plays a crime writer who Winona thinks is the Devil in waiting. Instead of just shooting him and doing the world a favour, she forms an uneasy relationship with him. What exactly she plans on doing is hard to say. That's the whole problem with this movie. The 'Se7en'-esque visuals are more important than a decent script. The characters motivations don't really make sense, and as soon as the plot looks like it's going to go is some kind of interesting direction, it doesn't. After a certain point you give up even caring what happens, surely a bad sign in a movie where the whole fate of mankind is at stake?!

Ryder used to be effective as alienated teens back in the late 80s in favourites like 'Beetlejuice' and 'Heathers', but lets face facts, movies like this and 'Girl, Interrupted' show how limited her range really is. She hasn't grown as an actress and is basically just not believable.

Ben Chaplin showed some flair for light comedy in 'The Truth About Cats And Dogs', and had a few outstanding moments in Terrence Malik's wildly uneven and overrated 'The Thin Red Line', but he fails to interest here. Ryder and Chaplin don't show any on screen chemistry or rapport, and this sinks the movie even further into terminal boredom.

The talented character actors in the supporting cast - John Hurt, Kevin Baker Hall, Elias Koteas, John Diehl - are all wasted by the dull and cliched script. Add to that one of the most anti-climactic endings in recent memory, and you've got yourself one lame "thriller" that is a real lost opportunity.

If movies about Satanism, demonic possession, Occult conspiracies and/or The-End-Of-The-World-As-We-Know-It are your scene, avoid this snoozefest and go straight to 'Rosemary's Baby' and 'The Exorcist', both stylish AND genuinely scary classics. After that try the hugely overlooked 80s supernatural Demi Moore flick 'The Seventh Sign', and the more recent Christopher Walken vehicle 'The Prophecy', or the fantastic Spanish comedy/horror 'The Day Of The Beast', both from the mid-90s. These movies all feature more intelligence, originality and suspense than 'Lost Souls' could ever dream of having.

Winona had just had a big hit with "Girl Interrupted," and Ben Chaplin was impressive doing Montgomery Cliff's "The Heiress" part in "Washington Square." So what possessed them to do a cheesy "Exorcist" meets "the Omen" and "Rosemary's Baby" formula movie? In any case, the movie has a good opening twenty minutes and promises real scary stuff to come. You don't know anything about the characters or what's going on and that makes it a little frustrating, but you can forgive the movie for that. Unfortunately, the movie becomes less scary the more the silly plot and characters gets revealed. Probably the silliest moment comes when Winona tells Ben that he fits the profile for the "antichrist" because he's never been baptized. It is hard to see how Winona Horowitz could say such a thing with a straight face.

Apparently the first time director is a great cinematographer. That is usually not such a good thing. Yes, Stanley Kubrick did make the transition, but most cinematographers are too concerned with the lighting and have no idea how to direct actors. That turns out to be the case here, where everybody is just doing monotone line readings.

I confess my love for Winona, but even her presence only makes the film barely watchable and not quite enjoyable or fun.

winona ryder rarely fails to take you to the exact place where your fear (of childhood in other movies and religion in this) is born and leaves you there, standing on the edge of a cliff wondering if you'll end up jumping or not and you sort of dangle there till the end of the movie (yet if you own a sensible mind, the images will haunt you in your sleep). the movie itself is not that scary in my eye, but it does give you enough insight to let your own doubts and questions lead you to where your true fear may lie and this is the real appeal of the movie, so yeah, i recommend it.

In this horror effort, Winona Ryder (my has her career fallen) plays a young woman who once went through an exorcism (?) and now finds herself as the one person who can prevent Satan himself from occupying the body of a normally decent enough New Yorker (do decent New Yorkers exist??) Ryder does her best with the supernatural material and Ben Chaplin as the perplexed chosen one is decent. The story and direction (by first time director and award winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski) rachet up the thrills and suspense and arent afraid to offer a downbeat ending. Sometimes gets obsessed with style over substance however. GRADE: B-

I can make absolutely no sense of each and every one star review which calls this film horrible as well as the 4.7 rating. It is unfathomable to me. The cinematography alone should warrant a rating of at least 5.

This is a subtle religious horror flick that I have to assume people rejected because of the lack of scares and gore. However, the performances, direction and cinematography are all top notch. Though Lost Souls was marketed to look like a demonic scare-fest, I would compare this film to the likes of The Exorcism of Emily Rose. In fact, I would not be surprised if the makers of that film borrowed quite heavily from this one, both in style and effects.

The premise is relatively simple: A small religious sect believe the coming of the anti-Christ to be near, sitting dormant in a human body.

The biggest praise that I can bestow upon this film is that over 12 years later, this film still looks like it could have been made yesterday. In fact, it looks uncannily more modern than a large majority of recent horror efforts. Lost Souls simply does not age.

Another popular factor in why this movie is so poorly rated and received is the fact that audiences just did not like the ending. I feel sorry for those that do not. The ending is original, and though it did not satisfy blood thirsty Hollywood horror fans, it is very much appropriate for this film. To put it simply without spoiling anything: faith is the central core to Lost Souls, those with it and those without. That is what this ending plays off of, and I think it's perfect. Please do not let any of these negative reviews divert you from seeing this film.

This is not End of Days or Stigmata. Lost Souls is not camp in the slightest. It is a dark, beautifully shot and well acted film that is significantly ahead of it's time.

7/10