Soultaker (1990)

Wonderful character development!

Strong and Moving!

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Natalie McMillan (Schilling) is the "rich girl" in her small town, and Zach Taylor (Thomsen) is the poor local mechanic. Before this West Side Story/Romeo & Juliet-like romance can get off the ground, their buddy Brad Deville (Fralick), who appears to be a cross between a lunkhead and a meathead, drives drunk and they all die (?) - but before "The Man" (Estevez) can collect their souls, they realize what's going on and they all run away from The Man and his partner (again a ?), Angel of Death (Z'Dar). This race between life and death intensifies because Natalie reminds The Man of a woman he used to love in a past life. Who will win - those who collect the souls of the recently deceased, or mulleted, 37 year old teens on the run? Okay, we all know Soultaker was famously tackled by the MST3K guys. Let's try and put that aside for a moment, if possible, and realize that it is indeed AIP April once again, so we have to put in our two cents as well. Rather than mercilessly bash the poor movie, we choose to dwell on the positive: the first half. Any scenes with Brad Deville - and David "Shark" Fralick does indeed look like a dude named Brad Deville - are gold. The "Summerfest" sequences provide solid entertainment/laughs/80's nostalgia, and the presences of Robert Z'Dar and Joe Estevez are comforting and familiar. To see them working and walking together as an "afterlife team" was pretty cool. And we applaud the effort all around, even if the final result is (pleasantly?) amateurish. But that's what we look for. Not everything has to be absolutely perfect and we cherish the quirks. But it's not all a Summerfest bash… The second half of the movie is boring, dull, and repetitive. Even the powerhouse team of Z'Dar with his unintelligible electronically-lowered voice and Joe Estevez with his black guyliner can't remedy that. Their characters are supposed to be menacing because of these things, not to mention their black coats. They also disappear and reappear quickly thanks to what can only be described as "Blip-cuts". There's also a green special effect that will remind you not of Slimer from Ghostbusters, but of his Hi-C Ecto-Cooler. Zach Thomsen gives Billy Warlock a run for his money, and Vivian Schilling, interestingly enough, is credited with screenplay/story on the film.So as a glimpse of the end of the acid-washed 80's, with plenty of 80's coolguys and coolgirls and their various fashions, Soultaker has some value for that reason alone. Pounding, generic 80's rock/metal seems central to their lives, though the end credits song, "Somewhere in Paradise" by Karen Lawrence, would seem to contradict that. Yet again we have a movie of two halves - the first being better, of course - but it's largely sunk by the dull second half.

where the only positive reviews are given by film crew and their family members?I really didn't mind Soultaker (and yes, I've seen both original version on VHS and MST3k version), but after reading some reviews over here, which are ironically given by director, producer, actors and their family members, I just couldn't resist to do a review here. On it's own, Soultaker, isn't original story as some other reviewers claim (it's a clear Carnival of Souls rip off, which is, ironically, Twilight Zone episode rip off) but the concept of Grim Ripper going after group of lost souls isn't exactly the theme that happens often in horror industry. Screenplay has some OK moments, but it clearly needed more work and help from more expired writers. but what crack me up was "review" of director Michael Rissi where he just keep telling how good his movie was and how he manage to find every single excuse why his movie sucks. It's MST3K fault, right? Get serious. I understand that "Soultaker" had very limited budget, but again, budget doesn't have to play all that much. If you don't believe me, here are few examples: Robert Rodriguez with his first movie, and for "true underground", Turkish director Can Evrenol, who made some of the best short horror movies ever for budget no bigger then $2000 combined. You can't blame everyone else for lack of directing skills. Direction wasn't a complete disaster, but none of the camera movement really stood out. It has some OK moments, but nothing special. I am in industry myself (as a screenwriter, in my native language, currently preparing for first directorial debut) and some young directors that worked on my script were brilliant. On top of that, they worked with far less budget then "Soultaker" but manage to film a lot better movie. But to be honest, Soultaker does have some descent moments that were nicely directed. It's clear that budget (or lack of it) was important factor for this movie. As other guys said, with higher budget, better director and crew and more professional actors, "Soultaker" might have been a bit better and would not end up just as another MST3K fodder.I might sound a bit harsh, but I was really provoked by level of arrogance from "Soultaker" crew giving those reviews. Isn't that forbidden, btw? As far as I know, directors and producers aren't allowed to write reviews about their own movies. Anyway, Michael Rissi did gain some skills on his next few movies (all of them which are lot better then ST) and hopefully "Soultaker" would become "Alien 3" of David Fincher.final verdict: "Soultaker" while not something that I would gladly recommend, isn't that bad as IMDb bottom 100 suggest. There are far worse movies out there (try watching MANOS. If you survive, you know you'll survive ANY movie). Sadly, "Soultaker" ended up being a descent concept which had horrible execution.

Michael Rissi's review pretty much states that Mystery Science Theater butchered this movie. After looking at the review I then watched it, but I still found some things wrong with the movies coherency and plot.Basically, with this film your characters have souls separated from their bodies. The one thing wrong is that they can interact with objects around then, when physically they don't exist. Among my favourite ghost/limbo movies is the Swedish film Den Osynlige (and the American remake - The Invisible) and that did things right by having whatever Niklas/Nick would interact with be immediately undone. MUCH more believable.I feel the above inconsistency with the plot needed to be mentioned. I may watch this movie uncut, but maybe not because that above inconsistency doesn't have an explanation for why it's happening. If you want to watch a better movie taking on this subject then watch Den Osynlige.

Four teenagers are killed in a car accident. Two of the teenagers refuse to go with "The Grim Reaper" and a race between life and death ensues! I see this film has reached the bottom 100. Wow. It is not that bad, and I suspect the only reason it got there is because "Mystery Science Theater" fans have a tendency to put featured films on the low ranking. (I mean, really, even "Manos" is not as bad as IMDb makes it out to be.) Is this film bad? Oh, heck yes. Teenagers (especially one) that look far too old. Some ugly faces, too. And I do not mean Robert Z'Dar (a god in the world of low budget film). But who does not like a little cheese now and then? Especially cheese featuring Joe Estevez, one of the least-appreciated members of his illustrious family.This film exists to be made fun of and to drink yourself silly to. Perhaps better writing, a better cast and a different director could have saved it. But then we are talking a completely different movie.