Strange that a director as well-established and acclaimed as Wes Craven would decide to slum it and make an unironic slasher flick, but that's what he's done here. My Soul to Take is a return to his roots, a mashup of some themes from A Nightmare on Elm Street with the dead-teenager motif pioneered by Friday the 13th. It's the kind of maddeningly creative, sloppy yet irresistible mess that used to be Craven's forte during the '80s, and it's the most underrated shocker from this director since, well, Shocker.
It has everything. The return of the long-dormant serial killer. The nightmares that blend with real life. The nerd who gets with the popular girl. And this time the killer may have passed his soul into one of the children who was born on the day he died. The "Riverton Ripper" was killed sixteen years ago to the day, coincidentally the day seven Riverton kids were born. Not so coincidentally, the kids all turn sixteen and the killings begin again. No one knows if it's a copycat, or if the Ripper isn't dead, or if it's simply the soul of the killer that's alive. Suspicion falls on Bug (Max Thieriot), a local spaz who's one of the Riverton Seven, and has been acting strange lately.
I was hooked right from the opening sequence, which is a masterstroke. I won't reveal what happens, but Craven manages to turn the tables on us multiple times within the first 20 minutes. He weaves his string of cliches together with an ease that no other director could apply. Where in different hands this plot would be labored and heavyhanded, Craven injects it with thrills and humor. Though he has occasionally branched out into the realm of satire (Scream), Hitchcockian suspense (Red Eye), and even melodrama (Music of the Heart), this kind of movie is his home turf.
Thieriot is very good as the questionable lead character: he has the difficult task of portraying a character who may simply be schizophrenic or may be possessed by the soul of a murderer, but he finds a likable person amid all that. Craven's grasp on psychology is less than firm, but believable enough for a film like this. John Magaro is amiable as Bug's spazzy friend Alex, and the two share a biology presentation scene that turns into a brilliantly nasty comic set piece. Zena Grey has fun as a local religious girl who's also one of the Riverton Seven, and Emily Meade viciously chews scenery as the high school equivalent of a mob boss
Naturally, My Soul to Take isn't perfect, and after about an hour and a few dead teenagers the specter of nihilism begins to haunt it. Some characters are dispensed with too easily, as if the screenplay can't wait to be rid of them. Since Craven is fairly adept at character development, it's disappointing when he opts for the quick shock of death rather than keep the characters alive and draw out the suspense further.
Still, this is a surprisingly decent throwaway effort from Craven, who in his early 70s still has the vigor of a young splatter filmmaker. My Soul to Take is a homecoming for Craven, a pure horror film that fans should not miss.
*** out of ****
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