Movie Info
Movie Name: My Soul to Take
Studio: Relative Media
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): October 10, 2010
MPAA Rating: R
I’m just a homeless bum
Abel Plenkov (Raul Esparza) was hiding a secret…even from himself. Unveiled as the Riverton Ripper, Abel is shot and captured after killing his pregnant wife and trying to kill his child…only to escape into the night. In a strange coincidence seven children were born on the night of Abel’s disappearance and the Riverton Seven celebrate their birthday every year by remembering the events. Now sixteen years later, Jerome (Denzel Whitaker), Alex (John Magaro), Penelope (Zena Grey), Brittany (Paulina Olszynski), Brandon (Nick Lashaway), Jay (Jeremy Chu), and Bug (Max Thieriot) are finding the horror is returning when the murders begin again. Has the Riverton Ripper survived or has a new Ripper taken his place?
Written and directed by Wes Craven, My Soul to Take is a horror thriller. The movie was released to negative reviews.
This is just how I hug
Following his last full feature Red Eye in 2005 and a portion of the movie Paris, je t’aime in 2006, My Soul to Take was Wes Craven’s penultimate film…which is real unfortunate. He was a director that had a real grasp on what was scary and what could scare people, but My Soul to Take missed the target big time.
The plot has way too many pieces. You have the Ripper, the supernatural aspect (with almost a Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Master character absorbing the souls of the dead), and a teen drama on top of that. Most of the pieces don’t really get their full due and as characters are picked off, you don’t care much because unlike something like A Nightmare on Elm Street, you don’t really have any vested interest in the characters who are paper thin tropes. The story culminates in a dull stand-off with a killer that is void of thrills or chills.
Don’t “Bug” me….
The cast is rather typical of teen casts. Max Thieriot is the best of the bunch, but he is also the most developed of the characters so it isn’t hard for him to be the best. It feels like John Magaro’s character wasn’t sure exactly what he was doing through the whole movie (if he wasn’t trying to play the villain he failed and if was trying to play mysterious he also failed). I kind of liked Emily Meade as “Fang”, but she felt really shoved in there.
The movie also isn’t aided by the visuals. The killer has potential to be interesting (a cloaked figure in black hunting people though he kind of just looks like a homeless guy), but the scares are surprisingly lacking. The horror is basic and the jumps are predictable. It is a real shame.
My Soul to Take is a movie you can skip and is a lazy output by Craven who has done much better work. The film’s ending surprisingly doesn’t seem to have any twists nor are there any sequels indicated which is a good thing…I hope that other filmmakers leave this Craven movie to rot. Craven followed My Soul to Take with his final film Scream 4 in 2011.
