Grotesque, dull, pretentious and derivative horror flick about a schizophrenic serial killer that may or not has reincarnated as one of the seven children who were born on the day he vanished after a violent struggle with the police. The basic idea of "My Soul To Take" still holds some potential, but the elaboration is weak, routine and full of rookie mistakes. In fact, if the film didn't have Wes Craven's name attached to it, it surely would have disappeared immediately to the lowest shelves of obscure video stores and into oblivion. But it is written and directed by Wes Craven and he will forever be considered as a master of horror, even though he made four times as many stupid movies than good ones. Especially because Wes Craven has more than 30 years of experience in the horror movie business, he ought to know better than to stuff his screenplay like a Thanksgiving turkey with dreadful clichés and stereotypes! He himself parodied all these overused trademarks in the "Scream" films, but now he makes the same damn rookie mistakes, like off-screen killings, dialogs that appear to be written by failed film students and a stupidly masked psychopath that fires off lame one- liners. After the intro, which is undeniably the most exciting part of the film, "My Soul To Take" jumps forward to the night when the "Riverton Seven" (the seven babies born the night when the ripper vanished) celebrate their sixteenth birthday. In good old Hollywood horror movie tradition, the 16-year-old protagonists are all depicted by 22-year-old actors, except for the supposedly older sister who's depicted by a younger actress. Makes sense, right? In spite of sharing their birthdays, they are a textbook bunch of high school teenagers that hate each other. We have the bully, the beauty queen, the disposable guys with other ethnics, the religious nut and the offbeat loners. Their birthdays has only just started when they are killed off one by one. The murders are uninspired and Wes Craven too obviously tries to make the violence resemble to his mega-successful franchise "Scream". The killer's outfit and knife, for example, are apparent "Scream" imitations. There's no suspense or uncanny atmosphere whatsoever, not even during the stalk 'n slash sequences in the woods or during the (massively overlong) climax. Personally, I didn't watch the film in 3D but I truly don't see how it could have benefited from this effect. "My Soul To Take" is a shockingly mundane and forgettable film from a director who has always been slightly overrated.
Review of My Soul to Take
