6 Souls (2013) + Dead Souls (2012) – Blu-ray Discs

6
SOULS (a.k.a. Shelter)
**/****
Image A
Sound A
starring
Julianne Moore, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Jeffreey DeMunn, Brooklyn Proulx
screenplay
by Michael Cooney
directed
by Marlind & Stein

DEAD
SOULS
½*/**** Image
C Sound B Extras C
starring
Jesse James, Magda Apanowicz, Bill Moseley, Geraldine Hughes
screenplay
by John Doolan
directed
by Colin Theys

by
Walter Chaw The best scene in the surprisingly-not-awful 6 Souls happens in a toothless hinterland, up yonder in them thar hills, ’round
campfires and lean-tos and a wilderness of patchy facial hair, where
forensic
psychologist Cara (Julianne Moore) meets a Granny Holler Witch (Joyce
Feurring), who is just indescribably awesome. She’s like a refugee from
The
Dark Crystal–the very incarnation of Aughra, blind but
seeing through an
albino familiar (Katiana Davis) as she performs psychic surgery, sucking up
souls
with her mouth and depositing them in a jar she calls “shelter.” Indeed, it’s
such an awesome scene that it shows up how
perfunctory the
rest of Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein’s 6 Souls
is; how the idea of a
demon jumping bodies (like The Evil Dead, yes,
but more like Fallen)
can look very much like an early-’90s mid-prestige thriller and
therefore not
anything interesting or special. A shame, as the talent
assembled for
the piece is exceptional–Moore, certainly, along with the
always-fabulous Jeffrey DeMunn as Cara’s dad Dr. Harding. It’s his
fault that
Cara gets involved with psych-patient Adam (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who, in the
process of manifesting multiple bad-accent theatre personalities, also
seems to
be manifesting their physical traits (like paralysis, say, and bad
acting,
too). Turns out it ain’t science afflicting our man Adam, but you
knew
that already.

What follows is an excellently-shot,
completely familiar child-in-peril bit (Cara has an adorable Newt-like
daughter) that has at its core a fascinating conversation on the
power of
faith and the presence of God, albeit no more fascinating than any film
about
demonic possession and the existence of souls. What sets 6
Souls apart
to the extent that it’s set apart are the performances from Moore and DeMunn (Nathan
Corddry, too, as Cara’s brother–and of course Granny Feurring) and a
late
appearance by the always-creepy-now Frances Conroy as the mother of one
of the eponymous souls. “Your textbooks have failed you, isn’t that right?”
says Conroy’s Mrs. Bernburg–just the first in a constant
flood of
thesis statements meant to clarify that this supernatural thriller is
a
supernatural thriller. Beyond that, there isn’t a lot going on: Believe in
God and
God will protect you; don’t, and He fucks you or, by neglect, allows
you to get
fucked. It’s kind of the Westboro Baptist Church: The Movie, but I
wasn’t
offended. Fundamentalist bigotry isolated in the vacuum of a picture nobody saw
is too pathetic to be offensive. In that context, a moment where a
little girl
getting a bath states that she doesn’t believe in God because her
father was
killed is surprisingly potent–a moment undermined by an unwillingness to pay off her infant atheism in the appropriately goopy
way. (Or
at all, really.) At the end of the day, 6 Souls
is very much like
another Julianne Moore thriller, The Forgotten:
workmanlike, if sometimes
better than that, it plumbs no new ground but is, small favours, no
great
chore to endure.

Taken with Colin Theys’s Dead Souls,
in fact, the two flicks become a potentially interesting diptych about
faith-healing and what happens when parents think they can pray illness
away.
Maybe they’re right. At the very least, dead is no longer technically
“ill,” yes? This one, a Chiller-channel original, opens promisingly
enough with a wackadoo reverend murdering his wife and children, nailing
them to
the crossbeams of his basement, then declaring in high Empire
Strikes
Back fashion that, lo, there is another. Years later, teenage Johnny (Jesse James) receives a letter announcing that he’s inherited his birth-family’s
murder-farmhouse; he didn’t even know he was adopted. Returning “home,” he discovers all the terrible secrets of the family reserve, fends off
what appears to be every crow in the state, and unleashes the horror of the
great god
Osiris. Yes, it’s a made-for-cable fright-flick written by the Tori
Amos
fanclub. What I’m saying is that it’s not that good, not even with the
introduction
of a love interest in comely Emma (comely Magda Apanowicz).

The script by John Doolan is one culprit,
the flat direction by Theys another, but truly there’s enough blame for
the general dtv suckage to go around. Genre vet Bill Moseley cameos as a
small-town
sheriff, and then there are possessions, ghostly shenanigans, zombies (kind of),
and a ridiculous séance punctuated by the least scary
door-slamming in
the world. Weighted down by yards of exposition, a hilarious
axe-to-the-gut
scene (and a more hilarious burning-a-guy-to-death scene), and editing
that can
only be described as prosaic and lackadaisical, Dead
Souls, sufficed to say, is one of those movies you spend months trying to
get through
and seconds forgetting entirely. Star of the show goes to a nice-seeming German Shepherd that counts as the most non-threatening
canine
antagonist since the titular menace of Devil Dog: The
Hound of Hell. With its sedate gore and sedate clothed-sex, Dead Souls comes off like some
benighted
mash-up of “The Waltons” and The Evil Dead. Which
sounds
awesome, I know.

THE
BLU-RAY DISCS
Anchor Bay ushers 6 Souls home to Blu-ray in a handsome 2.35:1, 1080p transfer that reproduces a sepia-tinged palette and dense but not opaque shadow detail with exceptional, filmic fidelity. (Sitting on the shelf since 2010, the picture was shot in Super35.) The image is razor-sharp with nary a hint of
digital
artifacting, some light crush not withstanding. Check
out the campfire-in-the-Ozarks sequences and marvel at the finely-wrought embers licking at the
night. It’s an especially gratiftying presentation because the look of the film is arguably the best thing about it. The accompanying 5.1 DTS-HD MA track honours a mix with persuasive atmospherics and a
nice use
of the rear channels during the father’s death; 6 Souls‘ sound and visuals point to
a future for directors Marlind & Stein. There are no special
features on
the disc.

Scream Factory’s BD release of Dead Souls only brings into relief that this is a zero-budget,
basic-cable
production shot in lustreless HiDef video. Not much to
complain
about, ultimately, except that the 1.78:1, 1080p transfer can’t help looking like a particularly good VHS dupe recorded in SP
speed. The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is a little more vivid, but the mix is routine. Meanwhile, a 7-minute “Blooper Reel” (HD) is stuff not breaking when it should and breaking
when it shouldn’t, plus a quick hit of Geraldine Hughes, as Johnny’s
possessed
mother, crying out “my vagina” when a rubber axe hits her vagina. You
know, for German audiences. I did sort of enjoy a couple of gaffes involving crows not doing what the filmmakers want, which, you know…I
guess I was
pretty desperate to be entertained by that point. A pretty useless “Set
Tour” (6
mins., HD) finds director Theys walking around shooting selfies and making a reference to Resident Evil. For what it’s worth,
Theys seems like a
nice, organized guy. A yakker with Theys, Doolan, and producer Andrew
Gernhard
is collegial, chummy even; they are infectious in their enthusiasm for
not this project, necessarily, but any project. Lots of
location
trainspotting that’s not interesting, name-dropping of people I
don’t
know, and fond recollections of instances and errata that can be
interesting to
no one but these three people.

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