DVD Reviews

My Soul to Take – DVD Review

By Jeff Swindoll Feb 8, 2011, 17:15 GMT

Wes Craven ("A Nightmare On Elm Street", "The Hills Have Eyes") brings audiences closer to terror in "My Soul To Take". In the sleepy town of Riverton, Massachusetts, legend tells of the Riverton Ripper, a serial killer with multiple personalities who swore he would return to murder the seven children born the very night he died? Why? Legend has it that this man had seven personalities... and only one was ...more

Soulless might be the most apt description for the latest film from Wes Craven.  It seems like it’s a retread of ideas that he has done better in other films.  It’s possible that he wanted to step behind the camera before helming Scream 4, but if it was to show producers that he still had it then this film may have had the opposite effect. 

The Riverton Ripper is a serial killer terrorizing Riverton, Massachusetts in 1994.  The police are clueless to the identity of this phantom murderer.  However, they’ve recently gotten a clue since security camera footage shows the masked murderer’s oddly shaped knife and they’re even able to enhance the footage to see that “vengeance” is etched on the blade. 

Family man Abel Plankov (Raul Esparza) sees these latest developments on the evening news.  His wife is pregnant and he has a three-year-old so he’s concerned about the killings going on in town.  Until he finds that unmistakable and bloody knife on the floor of his basement workshop and realizes that his personality disorder has returned and that one of them is the Riverton Ripper. 

He tries to call his psychiatrist, but the doctor calls the police.  Mayhem ensues and the Ripper is supposedly slain but not before he kills his wife, his psychiatrist, and a host of policemen.  On the ambulance ride from the murder scene the Ripper dies, but there are seven children born at Riverton hospital at that exact moment. 

Sixteen years pass and the Riverton seven children, jock Brandon (Nick Lashaway), popular girl Brittany (Paulina Olszynski), misanthropic Alex (John Magaro), religious Penelope (Zena Grey), meek Adam 'Bug' Hellerman (Max Thieriot), sightless Jerome (Denzel Whitaker), and the artistic Jay (Jeremy Chu), always gather at the riverside to fend off a representation of the Ripper.  If this visage is defeated then everyone is safe for another year, but this year Brandon insists that “Bug” fight off the Ripper. 

The frightened “Bug” fails and soon the Riverton seven are dropping like flies at the hands of the Ripper. 

Wes Craven hadn’t directed a film since 2005’s Red Eye, an effective thriller in its own right.  I guess he wanted to work on a smaller picture before the anticipation of Scream 4 to knock the rust off of his directorial skills.  The problem is that the film is a mess and it would appear he only has himself to blame as he shares writing and directing credits. 

The characters we’re presented are mindless and forgettable.  I certainly couldn’t latch on to any of them, but it’s been decades since I’ve been sixteen (too many to count).  However, these sixteen-year-olds also don’t behave like sixteen-year-olds, perhaps because they’re written by the much older Craven. 

The writing plays like a greatest hits off of Craven’s resume.  We have a soul swapping plot and killer that harkens to Nightmare on Elm Street (or maybe Shocker) and a Haitian that sets up that plot that put me in mind of Serpent and the Rainbow (excellent film by the way) before she disappears. 

A last minute conversion to 3D probably didn’t do much either.  We even throw in a silly Heathers/Mean Girls subplot about a Goth chick (Emily Meade) dubbed “Fang” that rules the school hierarchy with an iron fist. 

By the time the end credits rolled I didn’t much care what happened to these kids, much less the adults that are given little screen time. 

My Soul to Take is presented in widescreen (2.35:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions.  Special features include a commentary by Craven with actors Thieriot, Magaro, and Meade, a 1 minute alternative opening, two alternate endings (4 minutes total), and 21 minutes of deleted and extended scenes. 

My Soul to Take certainly falls close to the bottom of Wes Craven’s filmography.  I suppose it does have some interesting ideas but they’re not done with enough panache to make it a memorable movie.  You’ll feel like your soul was sucked out by it. 

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