I was really, really looking forward to this one. as were all of my fellow THC freaks.. Wes Craven is who he is after all, and despite a few lackluster efforts lately, he makes good flicks. Well, this one is lackluster too, I'm afraid, and it made us sad.
Forget the 3D aspect of the movie, it was an after thought (like it seems to be with most 3D movies these days), and was nothing more than a marketing gimmick here. It did nothing to enhance the movie or make it more fun. At all. So forget about that mess, and let's concentrate on the plot.
It's 1994 and the Riverton Ripper is on the loose. His name is Abel. He's killed a bunch of girls, and after killing his pregnant wife, he calls his doctor for help because he feels like he's "losing it." Just as he's about to kill his 3 year old daughter, the police burst in and shoot him. They check to see if he's dead, and he grabs a gun and shoots his doctor. They shoot him again, and he vows to return. On the way to the hospital (why?), the cop and paramedic talk about souls or something, only to have Abel sit up and slash the paramedics throat with a hidden knife. Yeah.
The ambulance flips over due to the knife violence, and everyone escapes before it explodes. Abel escapes into the river, as do all of our hopes for this movie.
That's just the opening sequence.
16 years later (of course), we find out that 7 kids were born on the very night that the Riverton Ripper died/didn't die, and they have a party to celebrate every year on the anniversary of his death/undeath. As if you didn't see it coming, the "Riverton Seven" are killed off one by one, and of course the creepy kid of the school gets blamed. The creepy kid, Bug, has to figure out the mystery of Abel the Ripper, and why he can't get laid by the hottest girl in school. 14 plot twists later, it all makes perfect sense, and yet no sense at all... Come on... baby and big sister... Bug and his cranky, older sister... Think hard.
Riddled with cliches and a janky plot, I can't imagine how in the world anyone thought this movie would be good. It's predictable, safe, and at times, nonsensical. When the big reveal hits us (about Bug), it isn't compelling other than it compelled us to shake our collective head in disgust. The next big reveal (the one that "explains it all") was even worse.
By the time the ending was in sight, my attention was anywhere else but on the screen.
Maybe Hollywood is fine with making half-assed movies like this and marketing them to teens, whom they obviously think are complete morons. They are coming out with a Rubik's Cube movie after all. Fine, teens can suffer through crap easier than an older audience, but still, can't they make the crap less crappy at least? I can hate Twilight for everything that it is (and isn't), but it still make more sense than this movie ever could. I just said that. Trust me, that's saying a lot.
I'm getting tired of making excuses for our genre's great directors, and the bad films they've offered us in recent years. Hell, the remakes of Wes Craven's classic movies are better than most of what he's given us since maybe the first Scream. Maybe guys like him just lose their touch. Maybe they don't have the power to fight the execs that sit behind the desks and demand profit over quality. Whatever the reason, we're the ones suffering for it.
My Soul to Take sounded interesting enough, but delivered on none of that promise. Unless you're 14 and have no clue what good movies are yet. I would have liked it when I was 14. Maybe.
Let's hope we get a better effort from Mr. Craven with Scream 4, because we didn't get much of one here.
