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Soul Survivors
Artisan // R // February 26, 2002
List Price: $24.99 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie:
It's somewhat difficult to review two horror films shortly after one another. Especially when one of them is probably one of the best examples of the genre that I've seen in recent years. Both "Session 9" and "Soul Survivors" were quickly in-and-out of theaters last year, but one was an independent digital-video project that likely couldn't get better distribution. The other is, quite simply, more of what we've seen time and time again from the teen horror genre. Strangely enough, both are releasing on video on the same street date.
Melissa Sagemiller ("Get Over It"), Wes Bentley ("American Beauty"), Eliza Dushku ("Bring It On") and Casey Affleck ("American Pie 2") play college kids Cassie, Matt, Annabel and Sean, who head off to school as the movie begins. Cassie is seeing Sean, while Matt is with Annabel. Yet, Cassie used to be seeing Matt and after a party one night, they're caught kissing. Sean is understandably upset, but as the four are driving, Cassie gets into a terrible accident and Sean doesn't make it.
Cassie spends most of the rest of her days in school depressed and deeply saddened over what happened, but strange things start to happen. She sees Sean and has other visions, including odd people from the party following her. Her friends try to comfort her, but things happen - wait...actually, they don't. "Soul Survivors" really often goes absolutely nowhere. The film's few scary moments are predictable and badly timed. He even goes for a scare by sending a bunch of little kids yelling "trick or treat!" coming out from behind a corner.
As for the performances, "Soul Survivors" certainly doesn't provide the best from the four leads, but unlike some of these teen films, these actors are at least certainly capable of better in the future, especially Dushku, who is not only quite attractive, but energetic and engaging. Sagemiller (who looks scarily like Gwyneth Paltrow and even sounds like Paltrow!), Bentley and Affleck are also capable of a lot better. Strangely, Luke Wilson even turns up as a priest.
Overall, this is one of those instances where the film starts off poorly, then gets progressively worse and more difficult to care about as we're presented with scenes that are too similar to the ones that came before them. Carpenter's script is remarkably awful, with some truly terrible lines of dialogue. Cassie's character even tells one creepy girl to "go back to the Adams Family!". I have to praise Sagemiller that she actually could say that line without breaking into laughter. The surprise ending won't be much of a surprise, as I'd guess most people will guess it early on. "Session 9" falls apart towards the end, but is exceptionally creepy for the majority. "Soul Survivors" never even gets going and gets progresively worse as it goes on.
Artisan originally decided to recut the picture shortly before release to gain a PG-13 rating; the R-rated (not much more to it, it seems - Dushku and Sagemiller even take a completely clothed shower after painting their apartment together) version on this DVD release.
The DVD
VIDEO: Artisan Entertainment presents "Soul Survivors" in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen. Artisan has been slowly, but surely improving the image quality on their releases and "Soul Survivors" is one of the better looking titles that I've seen from the studio in recent memory. It's not without its share of a few problems during the show, but at best, the picture quality is quite enjoyable. Sharpness and detail were generally very good. Some of the film's darkest scenes could appear slightly too murky, but not terrible.
Problems remained few; the picture contained a couple of minor specks here and there, but that remained all in terms of print flaws. Edge enhancement did appear on occasion and infrequently even became somewhat annoying. If the presentation had a main flaw, this would be it. No pixelation or other problems were seen.
SOUND: "Soul Survivors" is presented by Artisan in Dolby Digital 5.1. The film's soundtrack is nothing special, but there's also nothing entirely wrong with it. Maybe some additional surround-sound action would have added interest, as it usually does help horror films that aren't scary (see "The Haunting" remake or, better yet, don't.). Anyways, "Soul Survivors" remains a rather chatty thriller, so most of the scenes really don't present that much of an opportunity for agressive surround use. Yet, even during some of the "scary" sequences, the rear speakers provided some fairly weak sound effects and added little tension or envelopment. Audio quality was fine, if not noteworthy. The alt-rock soundtrack came through crisply, while dialogue generally sounded clear and natural.
MENUS: Artisan almost always provides some heavily animated main menus and their edition of "Soul Survivors" is no different - in fact, we get no less than three animated main menus to choose from - all offer the same options, just different looks.
EXTRAS:
Commentary: actress Melissa Sagemiller provides commentary for seven scenes in the film - these scenes are able to be chosen from a menu. The actress actually should have talked throughout the whole film; while not exceptionally fascinating, her comments thankfully stray from what's currently happening in the scene and instead, discuss locations, thoughts about performance and other aspects.
Behind-the-Scenes: A very lame 4-minute featurette that heavily pushes and promotes the various aspects of the film. Not worth viewing.
Trailers: Two trailers for the film (Dolby 2.0)
Trailers: Trailers are also included for "National Lampoon's Van Wilder" (which looks awful, even though I like Tara Reid), "Stir Of Echoes", "Blair Witch 2: Book Of Shadows", "Ninth Gate" and "Mangler 2".
Living Dangerously: The Art of Harvey Danger: This is easily (!) the best thing contained on the disc. A student film, this is an interview with the band whose song is presented in the first couple of minutes of the film. They are quite irritated and feel not only was their song the best part of the movie, they feel that they came up with the original concept. It's all meant as a joke and it's quite funny - a great parody of the kind of "Behind The Music" specials that VH1 offers.
Also: Animated storyboards for three scenes, 3 deleted scenes, cast/crew bios and production notes.
Final Thoughts: The halfway decent attempt from the cast to make something out of exceptionally terrible material earns the film 1/2 *, but otherwise, this is a really weak movie with next-to-nothing of interest. Artisan's DVD is a decent release, providing very good video quality and decent audio quality, along with light supplements. Still, I definitely wouldn't recommend it.
It's somewhat difficult to review two horror films shortly after one another. Especially when one of them is probably one of the best examples of the genre that I've seen in recent years. Both "Session 9" and "Soul Survivors" were quickly in-and-out of theaters last year, but one was an independent digital-video project that likely couldn't get better distribution. The other is, quite simply, more of what we've seen time and time again from the teen horror genre. Strangely enough, both are releasing on video on the same street date.
Melissa Sagemiller ("Get Over It"), Wes Bentley ("American Beauty"), Eliza Dushku ("Bring It On") and Casey Affleck ("American Pie 2") play college kids Cassie, Matt, Annabel and Sean, who head off to school as the movie begins. Cassie is seeing Sean, while Matt is with Annabel. Yet, Cassie used to be seeing Matt and after a party one night, they're caught kissing. Sean is understandably upset, but as the four are driving, Cassie gets into a terrible accident and Sean doesn't make it.
Cassie spends most of the rest of her days in school depressed and deeply saddened over what happened, but strange things start to happen. She sees Sean and has other visions, including odd people from the party following her. Her friends try to comfort her, but things happen - wait...actually, they don't. "Soul Survivors" really often goes absolutely nowhere. The film's few scary moments are predictable and badly timed. He even goes for a scare by sending a bunch of little kids yelling "trick or treat!" coming out from behind a corner.
As for the performances, "Soul Survivors" certainly doesn't provide the best from the four leads, but unlike some of these teen films, these actors are at least certainly capable of better in the future, especially Dushku, who is not only quite attractive, but energetic and engaging. Sagemiller (who looks scarily like Gwyneth Paltrow and even sounds like Paltrow!), Bentley and Affleck are also capable of a lot better. Strangely, Luke Wilson even turns up as a priest.
Overall, this is one of those instances where the film starts off poorly, then gets progressively worse and more difficult to care about as we're presented with scenes that are too similar to the ones that came before them. Carpenter's script is remarkably awful, with some truly terrible lines of dialogue. Cassie's character even tells one creepy girl to "go back to the Adams Family!". I have to praise Sagemiller that she actually could say that line without breaking into laughter. The surprise ending won't be much of a surprise, as I'd guess most people will guess it early on. "Session 9" falls apart towards the end, but is exceptionally creepy for the majority. "Soul Survivors" never even gets going and gets progresively worse as it goes on.
Artisan originally decided to recut the picture shortly before release to gain a PG-13 rating; the R-rated (not much more to it, it seems - Dushku and Sagemiller even take a completely clothed shower after painting their apartment together) version on this DVD release.
The DVD
VIDEO: Artisan Entertainment presents "Soul Survivors" in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen. Artisan has been slowly, but surely improving the image quality on their releases and "Soul Survivors" is one of the better looking titles that I've seen from the studio in recent memory. It's not without its share of a few problems during the show, but at best, the picture quality is quite enjoyable. Sharpness and detail were generally very good. Some of the film's darkest scenes could appear slightly too murky, but not terrible.
Problems remained few; the picture contained a couple of minor specks here and there, but that remained all in terms of print flaws. Edge enhancement did appear on occasion and infrequently even became somewhat annoying. If the presentation had a main flaw, this would be it. No pixelation or other problems were seen.
SOUND: "Soul Survivors" is presented by Artisan in Dolby Digital 5.1. The film's soundtrack is nothing special, but there's also nothing entirely wrong with it. Maybe some additional surround-sound action would have added interest, as it usually does help horror films that aren't scary (see "The Haunting" remake or, better yet, don't.). Anyways, "Soul Survivors" remains a rather chatty thriller, so most of the scenes really don't present that much of an opportunity for agressive surround use. Yet, even during some of the "scary" sequences, the rear speakers provided some fairly weak sound effects and added little tension or envelopment. Audio quality was fine, if not noteworthy. The alt-rock soundtrack came through crisply, while dialogue generally sounded clear and natural.
MENUS: Artisan almost always provides some heavily animated main menus and their edition of "Soul Survivors" is no different - in fact, we get no less than three animated main menus to choose from - all offer the same options, just different looks.
EXTRAS:
Commentary: actress Melissa Sagemiller provides commentary for seven scenes in the film - these scenes are able to be chosen from a menu. The actress actually should have talked throughout the whole film; while not exceptionally fascinating, her comments thankfully stray from what's currently happening in the scene and instead, discuss locations, thoughts about performance and other aspects.
Behind-the-Scenes: A very lame 4-minute featurette that heavily pushes and promotes the various aspects of the film. Not worth viewing.
Trailers: Two trailers for the film (Dolby 2.0)
Trailers: Trailers are also included for "National Lampoon's Van Wilder" (which looks awful, even though I like Tara Reid), "Stir Of Echoes", "Blair Witch 2: Book Of Shadows", "Ninth Gate" and "Mangler 2".
Living Dangerously: The Art of Harvey Danger: This is easily (!) the best thing contained on the disc. A student film, this is an interview with the band whose song is presented in the first couple of minutes of the film. They are quite irritated and feel not only was their song the best part of the movie, they feel that they came up with the original concept. It's all meant as a joke and it's quite funny - a great parody of the kind of "Behind The Music" specials that VH1 offers.
Also: Animated storyboards for three scenes, 3 deleted scenes, cast/crew bios and production notes.
Final Thoughts: The halfway decent attempt from the cast to make something out of exceptionally terrible material earns the film 1/2 *, but otherwise, this is a really weak movie with next-to-nothing of interest. Artisan's DVD is a decent release, providing very good video quality and decent audio quality, along with light supplements. Still, I definitely wouldn't recommend it.
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