My Soul to Take (2010) Max Thieriot, John Magaro, Denzel Whitaker, Zena Grey, Nick Lashaway Movie Review

My Soul to Take (2010)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Max Thieriot in My Soul to Take (2010)

Take it Away

It is Ripper night, the night which 16 years ago saw Abel Plankov (Raúl Esparza) apparently die but also the night when the police tried to arrest him as they suspected him of being the serial killer the Riverton Ripper. But on that night 16 years ago 7 children were born including Abel's own son who had to be cut from his dead mother's womb and like every year these friends who share a birthday come together to ward of the legend of the Ripper. But Abel's son Adam "Bug" (Max Thieriot) has started having strange experiences including black outs and visions. When these friends start to die people begin to fear that maybe Bug may have inherited his father's killer side or maybe, just maybe the Ripper never died in the first place and is back looking for revenge.

Just because you are recognized as a genre master doesn't mean you are shit proof. Take Wes Craven the man who during the 70s gave us "The Hills Have Eyes", in the 80s "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and then in the 90s reinvented horror with "Scream" but he also gave us in 2010 the drek which is "My Soul to Take". It's not that Craven breaks the mould with "My Soul to Take" we are back with High School kids and some horror legend stuff, it's just that it really doesn't work and you are looking at your watch before the first 20 minutes are even up.

I suppose what may be wrong with "My Soul to Take" is that the characters are too typical and could have been in a "Scream" movie but instead of working it makes them feel like knock offs. But these characters are less easy to like than those in "Scream" and you sort of wish that when the inevitable slaughtering starts none of them survive because they are all too self obsessed or jerks. And that is a real problem because for me there has to be some sort of empathy with the characters for it to work.

But then there is all the horror stuff and quirky goings on with Bug having strange episodes which go from visions to mirroring one of his mates which is just daft. The trouble is that none of it is scary and even less scary when you have no empathy for the characters. But when you have a storyline which is messy, doesn't do a good job of explaining things and then uses characters with much more knowledge than realistic to shortcut things it just fails.

What this all boils down to is that "My Soul to Take" is poor and that is really disappointing considering this was written and directed by Wes Craven. But I guess you can't be good all the time and this was the equivalent of an off day at work for Craven.


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