My Soul to Take

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.

This is a pretty great movie. It keeps you guessing the entire time, and Wes always keeps things nicely suspenseful. Characters are well built, and the urban legend aspect is fun, and it does keep you wondering what exactly is going on. The cast is young and cute, and they all do a good job, although there are some seemingly unmovitaved moments that are a little disappointing. The script gets a touch weak at times but nothing that pulls you out of the viewing experience. Consider this a fantastic rainy day/date movie- perfect for snuggling up with someone, but something you can easily walk away from without breaking your heart either. Don't expect an earth shattering film, but expect to have a good time!

To fans of Western horror, the name Wes Craven is something of a legend. This is the guy who created one of the most iconic characters in horror- Freddy Krueger- in the "Nightmare in Elm Street" series. This is the guy who had the smarts to turn the genre on its head and give it a new breath of fresh air in the "Scream" trilogy, and come next year, quadrology. This is the guy whose horror movies- "The Hills Have Eyes", "The Last House on the Left" and of course the "Nightmare" series- are being remade by a new breed of filmmakers eager to be the next him.

Naturally then, the fact that "My Soul to Take" is Wes Craven's first film in five years (since 2005's "Red Eye") and first that the horror- meister has written and directed in fifteen years comes with certain expectations. Indeed, all the usual elements of a classic Wes Craven horror are present- a small town with hidden secrets from the past; a legend that is the stuff of campfire stories; and hipper-than-thou teen- speak- but unfortunately this is far from any classic. In fact, it probably qualifies as one of Wes Craven's career worst, if not the worst.

The opening in itself is baffling. A tightly condensed prologue is meant to set up the legend of the Riverton Ripper, a family man with multiple personality disorder including a particularly murderous one that has turned him into the town serial killer. He tries to kill his pregnant wife, the police rush in and shoot him a couple of times, he wakes rather miraculously to return the favour, the police fire some more, then the ambulance crashes on the way to the hospital and he disappears. Meanwhile on that very night, seven babies are born at the hospital.

The catch here is this- each one of his seven souls has taken over one of the babies, so one of them will eventually turn into a murderer. It's best you remember this, since the frenzied and convoluted manner Wes Craven tells the story makes it unnecessarily confusing. Fast-forward sixteen years later, when the Ripper has become the stuff of local legend, and a traditional prank played on one of them, Bug (Max Thierot), goes awry and apparently brings back the Ripper.

Unfolding entirely over the course of one day, Craven spends the first half of the film setting up his seven characters- the hot jock (Nick Lashaway), the sweet hottie (Paulina Olszynski), the religious chick (Zena Grey), the token Asian (Jeremy Chu), the African American blind boy (Denzel Whitaker), and Max's best friend Alex (John Magaro)- before the start of the blodletting. Sadly, none of the characters are any more than cinematic stereotypes, so whichever order they eventually meet their death doesn't really matter to the audience. The same goes for Craven's clumsy writing, his attempts at witty exchanges falling awfully flat.

By the time the Ripper comes calling, it's pretty much a case of 'too little too late'. Aside from not shying away from the gore, Craven botches any buildup to the climax by piling on the deaths too swiftly. Before any of the characters understand what is going on, they have already been off-ed or are in the process of getting off-ed. Even the extended climax done the Craven way (i.e. several characters trapped in the house with a killer in their midst a la "Scream") feels derivative and unconvincing.

The only consolation therefore is that by the end of the movie, you won't get a headache from watching the movie in 3D, as folks in the US would have (the movie is only available in 2D here). But the real horror is that Wes Craven may have finally, after an illustrious career stretching almost 40 years, lost his horror mojo. "My Soul to Take" is a major disappointment from Craven- let's just hope he still remembers how to make an audience "Scream" next year.

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

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.