My Soul to Take movie review

Perhaps writer/director Wes Craven (Scream, The Hills Have Eyes) is getting too used to this slasher stuff. It's apparent he never flinched during production. Because of this, the audience won't much either.

Plot wise, I feel slightly misled by the opening scenes of My Soul To Take which show a schizophrenic murderer in his final hours. The camera zips around as a man switches between his caring husband persona and his demonically possessed alter ego. The constant angle switches and frenetic pacing means we can't process much of what's happening; a lot of people die, or almost die, something crashes, there's an empty gurney. The beginning is a lot of mind-twisting fun, but it turns out all we really need to know is there was a killer named "The Riverton Ripper" and he murdered a bunch of people -- yes, with a knife, that's right -- and now 16 years later, seven children who were born the night of the killer's disappearance are about to go through a similar experience. After such a dramatic and impacting beginning, though, the plot really just turns into a sideshow for Craven's mystic, symbolic meditations.

In fact, every facet of the movie does. The characters are reduced to archetypes (the religious fanatic, the hot chick, the disabled guy, the jock) and the movie's set in a small wooded town, a perfect breeding ground for tribalism. The premises are all based around the symbolic social structure of the high school cliques Craven's cooked up. Frustratingly, he lets the students hints at some big socio-political ideas, the word "revolution" comes up a few times and morality is the rationale behind some motivations, but nothing is delivered with conviction. Perhaps Craven was attempting to portray the undeveloped 16 year-old brain at work -- an odd mix of symbolic gestures, guess work and budding rationality.

The main formalistic problem with these issues is the movie begins to drift into the silly zone. Craven is comfortable with the subject matter and his Jungian point of view, he isn't treading new ground. The audience has no need to fear or explore for themselves. You'll probably end up laughing more at the movies concluding scenes than be frightened.

But as absurdly as it deviates from reality, My Soul to Take is hard to ignore. It feels like it's laughing along with us at itself most of the time, only to snap into a cold, penetrating stare.
Craven understands he's over-exaggerating our mystic nature, but refuses to let us forget that it's still there.

Despite its problems, I did enjoy My Soul to Take's humorous self-awareness. At least it's a movie that doesn't hide the fact it's trying to be fun and is amiable enough to let you in on it.