That Craven Film Right Before Scream 4

 I felt as I was revisiting My Soul to Take (2010) that Wes Craven wrote, produced, and directed this particular high school slasher psychological horror film with his complete voice even though a majority of viewers/critics consider it one of his worst films. I recall seeing it the opening week of release in October of 2010. It's nuts this film is almost ten years old. I admit that the film befuddled me, especially the opening of the film where the "Ripper" seemed to pop up inside the head and take over a father of two as if a demon possessing a victim, ordering him to slice and stab. There is a paramedic that tells a cop that her ancestors often referred to "multiple personalities" and souls manipulating folks. Whatever the case, the original Ripper gets taken out after stabbing and shooting multiple cops and paramedics (even his own psychiatrist) before enough bullets kept him subdued. Even when you'd think he was toast, he still manages to pop back up to bloody a bit more. It really was quite absurd. Bug's behavior, seemingly going in and out of personalities, is clearly set up as the killer invaded by the Ripper "soul". There is especially two bizarre standouts that include mimicking his buddy Alex's exact movements and exactly talking word-for-word a doctor's history about the condor in class. Bug even seeing his friend "swimming in a mirror" certainly recalls something from "A Nightmare on Elm Street". A wacky moment has Bug reliving comments from different students "in their voice/personality" that Theriot is able to mimick remarkably well. A Ripper soul antagonist killing "teenagers" on their 16th birthday is outrageous as a plot but so is a burned-faced child killer using dreams to kill teenage kids of those who executed him. 

I like to get a sense of how I felt at the time I watched the film. I realize after reading my 2010 review right after watching it, I was sort of mixed on it while many others, when you read reviews they are quite scathing and brutal, consider Craven's "My Soul to Take" one of the worst films ever made, a shame, a waste of time, an interesting mess, a hodgepodge of past films and ideas, etc. I didn't hate this film, but I didn't really like it, either. I sort of consider it a weird, imbalanced, often quite peculiar Craven effort, one most brandish as an abject failure:

This was from the 22nd of October, 2010:

The Riverton Ripper is an actual schizophrenic father battling a malevolent personality wanting to murder his wife, unborn child, and daughter. While the wife isn't fortunate enough to survive, her fetus is rescued as is the daughter who is almost stabbed by her unstable father thanks to police who interrupt the psychopath before he can finish the job. Shot multiple times, he is supposedly subdued while inside the ambulance, yet reawakens, confiscating his notorious knife with "Vengeance" carved into the blade, stabbing one of the police officers, causing the vehicle to careen into a tailspin, eventually escaping never to be seen again. 16 years later, the "Riverton Seven" celebrate their birthday as well as the Ripper's vanishing. It is a legend that the evil soul of the Riverton Ripper had entered into the body of one of the seven babies upon birth(all seven were born at the exact same time when the Ripper vanished into the woods, pretty much accepted that he was so injured by all the bullets there's no way the his body could've survived for very long)and will start up the killing spree once again, using the teenage host to do his bidding. When a murderer begins to hunt down and kill the 16 year old members of the R7, the obvious suspect is the strange Bug(Max Thierot), shown in various scenes speaking in the voices of those who fall prey to the new psycho on the rampage. Bug discovers to his horror that he is the son of the Riverton Ripper, only further casting doubt in his direction, particularly when he happens to be in the woods near town at the same time as two students are knifed to death. Bug also hallucinates, seeing those of the R7 after they are murdered. As each member of the Seven is killed, Bug's guilt increases.

Craven's MY SOUL TO TAKE is kind of a mixture between SCREAM & NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET in that the killer, under a disguise, is attacking specific people, kids in school, and one among them is tormented by nightmares and certain images which aren't real, but a product of a damaged child held in his dead mother's womb for too long. Craven, I felt, never quite dispels the notion that Bug is completely innocent, the fact we see him speaking in the voices of classmates is proof enough that the young man is troubled. I don't think we can write him off as suspect just because he battles another killer towards the end, his sister also in the house as a witness to this fact. Ultimately, we have to ask ourself if Bug really contains the souls of his fellow Seven after they are killed or if he's simply bonkers. Bug, from the moment he awakens screaming from another horrible nightmare, is never shown as normal. I felt his psyche was fragile right from the start and the slightest trauma could trigger a psychotic break which would result in what we see happen to the 16 year olds, stabbed in brutal fashion. I would've preferred this angle, but Craven, maybe under pressure from the studio or producers, merely makes Bug a red herring, the supernatural angle of a killer's spirit possessing the real killer used instead. Craven uses sound effects and musical cues to make you jump and the stalk and slash scenes involving the imitation Riverton Ripper slayings are very reminiscent to the SCREAM ghostface killer. Bug is essentially the male equivalent of a Nancy or Sidney, his home life difficult(Bug's "mother" is actually a nurse who took care of him after he was rescued from mommy's corpse). Interesting development involving Bug's sister and how a certain girl named Leah(Emily Meade) is established early on, later revealed to be someone else entirely. I liked Leah's development from this "mean girl" who dictates teenage life within her school, a sort of force of nature the students are afraid to cross(they stay clear of the bathroom at a certain time so she can go inside, learn the gossip of the day, and smoke a cigarette), to only find that she isn't as special as her reputation would suggest. She's very much a source of pain in Bug's life, resenting him for being a "miracle baby", the reason coming to fruition when she, in a rage, unleashes her fury on him something fierce.

John Magaro is Bug's only true friend, Alex, a constant abuse victim of his stepfather. Denzel Whitaker is Jerome, the blind kid with good hearing. Zena Grey is Penelope, a Born Again Christian constantly quoting scripture and warning others of "the wrath to come". Nick Lashaway is your typical jock bully, Brandon with eyes and lust for Brittany(Paulina Olszynski). Jeremy Chu is Jay, the last member of the Seven who gets it first while walking home across the dreaded bridge overlooking a lake said to be the Ripper's final resting place. It never pays to walk home alone across a bridge, get caught in the school's swimming pool room, or in deep in the woods as these kids learn the hard way.

Some of the murder sequences are shot quite oddly. Brittany is lifted off her feet by a hulking, seemingly tall Ripper, and the camera placement is right above her legs with her feet dangling off the ground as blood starts to spatter and spray from stabs off screen. The Ripper would appear to be like over six foot and quite powerful. The most difficult watch in this is Leah just ridiculing and assaulting Bug because he's a "painful reminder". Yikes, does she have some trauma and issues that Craven emphasizes quite dramatically.