Wes Craven. It's hard to believe that it's been six years since we have lost him. His last film he gave us was Scream 4. At the time, it was a bit divisive for that franchise. However, it's time to talk about the one that people tend to overlook. Let's talk about My Soul To Take.
My Soul To Take was released in 2010. It was considered to be a bomb. But it was the first film since New Nightmare from Wes that he wrote, produced and directed. For me, it is one of my favorites and I consider it to be underrated.
The film kicks off with the story of Abel Plenkov. He was a family man that suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder. One night he discovers that one of his identities is the Riverton Ripper - a slasher that has been rampant lately. Plenkov kills his pregnant wife and attacks his psychiatrist. Before he can kill his daughter - Leah, he is brought down.
But before the night is over, the Riverton Ripper makes one more attack during the ride to the hospital and then seemingly vanishes.
Years later, the story of the Ripper is still being talked about. It's become a bit of a legend. 7 kids find themselves being targeted by someone. Bug and his friends got to try to figure out who it is before it's too late.
I won't go too far into the film itself because it's a bit of a rollercoaster. But it's very interesting. It isn't trying to overthink things. It's just trying to be simple and tell a story. That's something that I definitely support.
However the thing that I feel hurt the film is the expectations. Whenever people hear Wes Craven, they immediately think Scream. So immediately people compare it to Scream. And then the expectation that it needs to be a thinking piece or super in depth, well it set up things to fail. Wes even discussed the backlash to the film in interviews and had said that he was hurt bout it because he stood by it. Honestly that shows that he made the film to make a film. He wanted to have fun while doin it and to be proud of it.
All of the actors and actresses in this film do a great job. It's really cool to see some familiar faces and to see where they got their break. This was one of Max Thieriot's first gigs and went on to do Bates Motel. He's definitely an interesting actor and then further more when he got to Bates Motel. We also get to see Danai Guirira, best known as Michonne on The Walking Dead and Okoye from the MCU. Actually go look at the cast for this movie. It's really interesting seeing all of these actors and actresses together at this point in their career. Lot of them were up and coming. Then after working with Wes, they would end up finding their breaks. It's pretty cool to think bout that.
Now, there's some gore in this film. Actually there's a lot of gore in the film. It does not skimp on it. While I wish I could say that it's scary, it's not. It may be due to the fact that there's quite a bit of jump scares. But Wes does what Wes does and was able to make everything look interesting.
Do I recommend this film? Yeah, if you haven't seen it before. Give it a shot and go in with an open mind. You might be just surprised. If you have, give it a rewatch. There's always some small detail to pick up that you may not have noticed before.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5. It's not groundbreaking and it's not trying to be. It just trying to be enjoyable. Good rainy day movie.
Follow BlazinBlue's Horror Review on Facebook and Twitter.
No comments:
Post a Comment