#52 Soultaker (Wes)

Soultaker

Tracking this movie down was hard work. Very hard work. So hard in fact that we didn’t actually manage to do it. So we had the choice, watch two movies from our reserve list (like we’ve had to in place of Danes Without a Clue and Sura), or go the same route we did with Time Chasers (see here) and watch the MST3K version which was readily available on YouTube. I say choice, but that’s a choice on the same level as wearing Lady Gaga’s meat dress and running into a tiger’s enclosure at the zoo, or having a nice big ice cream sundae. So once again we gave our Twitter followers a break (follow us here and here) and said hello to Mike Nelson, Crow T Robot and Tom Servo and allowed someone else to take the piss out of the movie instead of us.

Natalie McMillan (Vivian Schilling) and her friends all meet up and go to Summerfest where the Angel of Death (Robert Z’Dar) instructs Soultaker “The Man” (Joe Estevez) to kill them at 8:00. Soon after the teens leave in Brad’s (David Shark – the oldest looking teenager ever) car, The Man walks into the middle of the road making Brad swerve into a tree. The teens wake up spread around the crash site seemingly unharmed, but with their friend Candice (Cinda Lou Freeman) missing. Candice is still in the car, and The Man takes her soul using a special ring. He then discovers that everyone else’s souls have flown from their bodies in the crash. The Angel of Death tells The Man that he must track down the missing souls by midnight. When The Man claims Brad’s soul the others realise they are in danger and run from him with Natalie and Zach (Gregg Thomson) eventually ending up in the local hospital where they meet Brad again who is now a Soultaker himself. Can their friend help them get back into their bodies and live again or will the The Man’s plan of walking at them slowly finally play off?

Like Time Chasers and Pumaman (see here) reviewing this movie whilst avoiding stealing any jokes from MST3K is actually quite hard to do. So if I do so, without realising it, or without crediting them, then I can only apologise. I will say now that if you get a chance to watch their version, then it can be found here and is well worth a watch especially as it contains one of my new favourite insults from them (“He’s a catchers mitt with eyes!” – more on that later). I will continue to try to find a full copy of this movie, and if I change my mind about it, then I will add a post script edit (it actually won an award when it was released and not a Razzie! Of course in a world where Forrest Gump beats Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption in the Best Picture category at the Oscars you can’t go by that as an indicator that a film is any good).

Vivian Schilling didn’t just star in this movie, she also wrote the screenplay too, and boy does it show. This movie really is just a massive ego-wank for her. Unfortunately she is neither a talented actress nor screenwriter, and this shows with lines so cheesey that they could be used to bait mousetraps. Lines such as “Led Zeppelin was wrong, man. There is no stairway to heaven” made me cringe so hard that I invented a new pastime – facial origami! 

The concept of the story itself is poor enough, but it really doesn’t make a great deal of sense either. There’s a lot of stuff in this film that just doesn’t make any sense, but the most baffling bit is that during the movie there’s a massive fuss about the soultakers having to claim the souls by midnight, but when this deadline passes absolutely nothing changes. What happened off screen? Did the soultakers explain to God that they’ve been having a lot of personal problems recently, and could they possibly get an extension to their soul collecting?

Schilling went on to write a few other movies I’ve never heard of (including Future Shock, which she also starred in and the yoga guide Teen Yoga), act in more movies I’ve never even seen gracing the bargain bins of Cash Converters and apparently write books that I’ve never even seen propping up the legs of a wonky table. Are there no beginnings to this woman’s talent?

As for the rest of the cast, you’d probably be able to guess from Joe Estevez’s name he is related to Emilio Estevez (Joe’s nephew), and if you know about Hollywood families, you’ll know that this means he is also uncle to Charlie Sheen and brother to Martin Sheen. Being related to these highly successful actors must be so frustrating when you’re known for movies such as this, Deathbed, Max Hell Frog Warrior and Zombie Farm. Watching him act though you’re not surprised that he is the member of the family that everybody forgets. His acting in this film reflects his role as the untalented member of the family, and seems to involve him staring and walking slowly trying to be intimidating. Whilst this may have worked for Arnie in The Terminator and Yul Brynner in Westworld, Estevez just looks like he really needs to fart.

Working alongside Robert D’Zar probably didn’t help him. I know D’Zar from his work playing Matt Cordell the undead cop in the classic Maniac Cop and it’s sequels. He is a tall, muscular, imposing looking man who has the genetic disorder cherubism, which gives him a huge square jaw (so much so that he looks like a human Minifig and could have had a starring role in The Lego Movie). Whilst he may not be the greatest actor in the world, D’zar uses his appearance to his advantage and genuinely appears menacing. Unfortunately for D’Zar his threatening appearance gets lost whenever he speaks due to the use of the same vibrating voice effect that was used for the aliens in the mini-series V. Instead of sounding menacing, it sounds more like he has accidentally swallowed a vibrating love egg.

Director Michael Rissi’s inexperience really shows in this movie, which is understandable in a low budget movie by somebody straight from film school. But in an amazing show of stroppiness about people criticizing this film, he’s actually reviewed the movie himself on IMDB claiming that the only reason most people hate this movie is due to MST3K. Myself I would definitely put it down more to the awful acting, diabolical script and sloppy direction that any promise that was there got bulldozed under the relentless torrent of mediocrity that hit this movie from every angle. Honestly the only post script editing I expect to do if I find a copy is to say that I was too nice about this pile of turgid crap and that this movie is just unmitigated torture without the MST3K team to get me through it.