Fear ye the Rip-off

DVD Review: MY SOUL TO TAKE
18 – 107mins – 2010
Written by: Wes Craven
Directed by: Wes Craven
Starring: Max Thieriot, John Magaro, Emily Meade, Nick Lashaway, Zena Grey, Paulina Olszynski, Denzel Whitaker, Raul Esparza, Jessica Hecht, Jeremy Chu
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[SPOILERS] My eagerness for satirical slasher sequel Scre4m (which I do intend to see before it leaves cinemas) was sliced down a notch after watching “master of horror” Wes Craven’s limp preceding offering. My Soul to Take is an ineffective mess of schizophrenic murderers, spiritualist hokum, loose plot-threads, weak scares, laughable chills and fruitless characters. Basically, it’s utter drivel which just screams direct-to-video B-movie. So the studio released it in box office-inflating 3D and witnessed it deservedly bomb.

Craven's first writing and directing gig since New Nightmare in 1994, My Soul to Take’s failure is even more disappointing because the premise is actually fairly novel. The film’s downfall is in its dire execution. 16 years to the day after the community of Riverton suffered terrible losses at the knife-wielding hand of the “Riverton Ripper” (Raul Esparaza), the seven children born on the night he was shot are being picked off in grizzly murders. Did the Ripper cheat death to wreck his revenge, biding his time and building his strength over the intervening years, or are supernatural forces at work?

The answer, dear readers, is the latter, despite the wounded psychopath being seen running away from the ambulance which was transporting him and his victims to the hospital, thereby keeping open the possibility of his survival. But this is just one of the many red herrings Craven throws at us, which, when you consider the film as a whole, are actually rather large plot holes. The Riverton Ripper’s soul has, in fact, been transported into one of the seven newborns who came into this world the night he left it. That’s right; the killer was that darn evil that even death couldn’t stop him. Sound familiar?

Introverted teen Adam “Bug” Hellerman (Max Thieriot), with his lack of medical records, schizophrenic impressions and morbid ability to see the recently deceased in the mirror (!), is instantly marked as suspect numero uno. Except it obviously isn’t him, because Craven tries so frickin’ hard to indebt him with all these “guilty” attributes (watch out for the family reveal halfway through) that you’re constantly anticipating a twist. And, predictably, we get one – so then what the hell was all that “dead reflections leave knifes for me in the sink” nonsense all about?!

My Soul to Take features countless genre elements which would work reasonably well on their own, but as mere fragments of this scatterbrained plot they serve no conclusive purpose other than to irritate. For instance, one of the seven teens is a Jesus freak (Zena Grey) and another is blind (Denzel Whitaker) – but their distinctive characteristics lend no purpose to the narrative! It’s as if Craven had a load of “this would be cool!” ideas, but in his excitement failed to cohesively tie them all together. And this is a veteran of modern horror cinema!


In a CR@B Shell: Over thought, over wrought claptrap from a (former) master of the genre who, most criminally of all, fails to see how preposterous his creation is and plays the entire farce entirely straight. Won’t stop you laughing out loud though.
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Wail of the Weeping Woman

DVD Review: DAMNED BY DAWN
15 – 81mins – 2010
Story by: Brett Anstey, Russell Friedrich, Rob Townshend
Screenplay by: Brett Anstey
Directed by: Brett Anstey
Starring: Renee Willner, Bridget Neval, Dawn Klingberg, Taryn Eva, Danny Alder, Mark Taylor, Peter Stratford
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Every week you'll witness a smattering of schlocky new genre releases dotted around the lower echelons of supermarket's DVD charts. Be they cheap cash-in sequels (such as the recent Mirrors 2) or small independent passion projects (such as the “After Dark Originals” series), few are worth shelling out your hard earned pennies for. There's a reason they didn't get a wide release, after all. Every now and then, however, one such cinema-evading spooker piques my novelty-susceptible interest – and 2010's Damned by Dawn, from intriguingly-monikered Australian's “The Amazing Krypto Bros”, certainly did that.

Admittedly, I was initially drawn to what I thought was a fanged vampire on the UK's whitewashed cover (see bottom pic), but a read through of the synopsis did little to dampen my interest; a soul-collecting Banshee with a scream to raise the dead sounded refreshingly original. And original Damned by Dawn undoubtedly is – even if my admiration was blotched by mild disappointment by the roll of the end credits.

As the life seeps evermore noticeably from her bed-ridden grandmother (Klingberg), twenty-something Claire O'Neill (Willner) returns to her father's (Stratford) run-down farmhouse for the first time in 18 months – with her boyfriend Paul (Alder) in tow. As Nana starts talking of a woman who will come to claim her soul when she passes, a spooked out Claire dismisses the creepy chatter as little more than illogical ravings – until the family are awoken by piercing shrieks in the middle of the night and their home is under threat from the recently risen dead; under the command of a wailing woman in white...

The screen continually cloaked in a dense fog, and the narrative unfolding entirely on the grounds of the eerie and isolated rural house, the filmmakers certainly cannot be accused of not summoning up a remarkably appropriate atmosphere. The Banshee – a blood-stained, ghost-faced, rag-wearing spirit – is a genuinely creepy creation. Alas, it soon becomes clear that her arsenal of abilities is strickly limited to floating and shrieking (the majority of which she does off screen) – making her no more fearsome than the ghouls she awakens.

On the subject of the ghouls – unearthed, supernaturally animated corpses – you have to admire the FX department for their budget-restricted effort, but, in truth, flying skeletons are not scary, and some of the atmosphere attributed to the Banshee is irredeemably eradicated by these ludicrous foes. Nonetheless, I will conceed to being impressed by the sequence in which Claire and her father speed away from the house in a car as countless airborne ghouls fly at the panic-stricken escapees.

Attempts to justify and add depth to the horrific events by tying the modern day phenomena to the O'Neill's family history by way of a black and white photograph, an heirloom urn and diary extracts from generations past are well meaning but ultimately fall short of lucid. As do the poorly-executed endeavours to grant the human characters with rounded personalities (the father's quickly forgotten kookiness; Claire's scarcely unmentioned secret). Ultimately, the film's greatest elements are the most gory (a gut-spewing, unrelenting zombie attack in the kitchen), and although the make-up is slapped on a little thick in parts, Damned by Dawn is an admirably gutsy independent chiller.


In a CR@B Shell: Small in scale but big in ambition, Brett Anstey's Damned by Dawn may forsake some of its unearthly ambiance with unintentionally gigglesome adversaries, but make no mistake – there is a gallant and damned spirited concept at the core of this low budget offering.
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