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.

This movie was one of the few that really scared me. It has many moments of actual horror. You can feel the horror surrounding you. It swallows you, almost. Maya Larkin (Winona Ryder) was once possessed by demons. She now helps priests in performing exorcisms. When she finds a name in a numerical code, she must hunt down and convince a skeptic that he is destined to become the anti-christ. This was a very creepy movie. I like the camera-work in it aswell. It makes it look like an older film. I especially like the ending. It was dark and gloomy. I thought it was great. This is a scary movie that people will look back on one day and see it as the year 2000's THE EXORCIST. Altough it got little time out in theaters, this is a movie that I feel will be something some day. LOST SOULS: 5/5.

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

Was this made for TV? Probably went striaght to rental. It's ok for a time filler, nothing much more. Couple of scenes may make you jump, or at least curl your lip. Not tooo slow going, just managed to keep my interest long enough until the anti-climatical ending. It's like reading a book only to find that the last page is missing, but then reaslise that it makes no difference...

The majority of the reviewers of this film were looking for a movie that isn't there at the expenses of seeing the movie that is. Lost Souls is a tightly wound question balanced on the edge of a knife: Is Maya a psycho killer or the savior of mankind? Given the fact that most psycho killers believe they are saviors of mankind, I opt for the psycho killer interpretation. The movie, which is a continuous balancing of the question, never letting up on clues that raise the question further, opts to let us decide. It allows Maya to walk away from the car after murdering the person she had convinced was the devil. At the fade out, one wonders how she had managed to get away with murdering her parents and how many more she will murder before she is finally stopped.

Ryder, whose eyes have always been a vehicle for her acting, uses them chillingly in the scene in which she murders Father Lareaux. Studying Ryder's evolving facial expressions as Maya finds out that the Father won't support her delusions, takes action, and then gloats at the outcome will convince anyone she's crazy.

An incredible performance. Or the way she handles the scene in which Kelson, her intended victim, casts back to his past to test if he really could be the devil. Kaminski bolsters it with the imagery of a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car unknowingly escaping, for the moment.

Adding up the body count just bolsters the psycho killer interpretation. By her own hand, she kills: the murderer George Viznik, brain dead; Kelson's girlfriend, Claire Van Owen; Father Lareaux and Kelson himself. Murders at her instigation: the investigator, John Townsend; Kelson's uncle/father; and Kelson's brother.

Take a second look. Watch Maya's eyes. Ask yourself at every turn, is this about the devil, or is this about the here and now, a psycho killer walking invisibly among us.