My Soul To Take

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From my blog:


Most of the "Masters of Horror" from the 70's and 80's have not had an easy time in recent decades.  Driven back low or no budget films (sometimes without distribution), if they can get a film made at all, only to see their classics get remade (poorly) for a new generation.  Of this group, Wes Craven has probably fared the best, second only to Evil Dead turned Spider-Man director Sam Raimi.  The Scream series gave Craven a huge career boost in the late 90's rivaling even his Nightmare On Elm Street heyday.  But for every Scream installment or surprise hit like Red Eye, there are the disasters.  His werewolf movie Cursed was delayed for more than a year and finally opened as a bomb, despite being authored by Scream writer Kevin Williamson.

His latest film, My Soul To Take, the first screenplay he's directed of his own since 1994's New Nightmare unfortunately falls closer to the latter.  The film apparently sat on the shelf for some time before being converted hastily to 3D and released a few weeks ago.  And it shows.  The characters look flat and separate from the background like they are in a diorama, which is distracting and unnecessary.  The story is about a group of 16 year olds who were all born the night a serial killer was killed.  Could his soul be inhabiting one of them?  The film actually starts promisingly with a cool opening sequence but becomes too confusing and convoluted for it's own good.  Still, it's nice to see Craven making an original film with the themes he's been circling his whole career, and there are definitely worse things.

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That movie has the honor of featuring the worst line of dialogue I've ever heard in a trailer:

"If something dead was evil enough, could it come back to life?"

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Yeah I mean I really don't want to shit on Wes Craven, but it just doesn't work.  Fingers crossed there was lots of studio interference but I'm not sure that'll explain some of the dialogue.