My Soul to Take

Rating: **1/2

Much like John Carpenter, who brought his new film THE WARD to the Midnight Madness section of the Toronto International Film Festival, Wes Craven has spent the last few years in the shadows of inferior remakes of his past successes. The bigger deal with Craven’s new film, his first 2005’s RED EYE (that is precluding his segment in PARIS JE T’AIME) is that this is the first time that he’s directed his own script since 1994’s NEW NIGHTMARE. Craven, being the mind behind Freddy Krueger, does indeed know what evil lurks in the hearts of men, but something about his latest, MY SOUL TO TAKE, just doesn’t quiet measure up to efforts of the past.

Not helping the matter is another ramrod, after the fact 3-D “upgrade.” There were times that I watched the screen without the glasses until the blur effect on the people’s faces got on my nerves enough to make me want to put the glasses back on. Can we stop the insanity? Was adding 3-D to MY SOUL TO TAKE, which was lensed under the title 25/8 and promoted as such when Craven was at Fan Expo two years ago, really going to gather AVATAR or ALICE IN WONDERLAND like yields? I doubt it. And special shout out to the trailer for SAW 3-D for using the boring, old hand reaching out of the movie screen motif in promoting the latest, dimensionally-enhanced chapter of the torture porn franchise.

But back to MY SOUL TO TAKE, a perfectly serviceable slasher film that gets bogged down in its own mythology and the distractingly horrible 3-D. Somewhere, at some point, Craven seemed to have some mojo working for him, but I’m not all together sure what that mojo was. Seven high schoolers have the misfortune (or good luck) of being born on the same day in the small town of Riverton, which also happened to be the same day that a notorious serial killer named the “Riverton Ripper” was captured and then lost to a raging river in the middle of a storm. But was the Ripper really dead?

Flash-forward 16 years, and the teens gather on their birthday to offer a challenge to the spirit of the Ripper. The one selected is Bug (Max Thieriot), who, according to tradition, must physically defeat the Ripper in order to keep the seven safe from his vengeful spirit. Naturally, this is the year that those old superstitions don’t protect the seven teens as well as they used to. Bug and his friends find themselves targeted by a force that might be the Ripper returned to extract revenge, but it may just as well be one of the seven under the control of one of the Ripper’s evil personalities.

The core story is solid, and Craven is certainly experienced enough to develop it in a compelling and frightening way, but as I watched the story unfold, I couldn’t help but feel as if the director was throwing too many balls up in the air. The film’s prologue sped by at a break neck speed, so much so that you’re forced to wonder why anyone was even bothering with the back story. When we get to the present day, there’s seems to be a whole other level of activity happening. The school’s students tremble in fear of a 90 lbs goth girl (Emily Meade) that keeps the kind of tight stranglehold on school society that would make Dick Cheney proud. Combined with gabbed filled scenes between Bug and his BFF Alex (John Magaro), which seemed to me as if Craven were channelling Aaron Sorkin, and I wasn’t sure what tone exactly the filmmaker was reaching for.

Obviously, Craven was trying to reach beyond the typical slasher pic, but like the Icarus of mythology, he was flying too close to the sun and his wings melted. MY SOUL TO TAKE isn’t so much a slasher film. There isn’t a lot of blood and not that many outlandish death scenes. There’s supposed to be some kind of mystery, but I didn’t find it very mysterious. We are, at times, supposed to believe that Bug is the unholy vessel for the spirit of the Ripper, but if Max Thieriot has ever even thought about doing as much as jaywalking I’d be very surprised. There’s very little about the kid that says “I could be menace to society.”

The result is that the end has no real tension. Not there was much of a build-up anyway once we get the revelation as to why the goth girl is the mean mother that she is. Again, the film feels like it was in the hands of someone who didn’t quite know what they wanted to do with all the things they wanted to do it with. Unfortunately, that person was the same person that wrote and directed the whole thing to begin with. Having said that, there’s something quite serviceable with MY SOUL TO TAKE. Another couple of drafts might have worked out the plotholes and some better pacing might have created true scares. Still, I feel encouraged by Craven’s return to the big screen, or at least I would if his next film weren’t a trip back to the SCREAM well… But at least that’s not going to be in 3-D.