wes-connors "After a night of partying, college freshman Cassie (Melissa Sagemiller) and her friends are involved in a bloody car accident that turns into a horrifying tale of the supernatural. Overwhelmed by startling hallucinations, Cassie's grip on reality slips further as she begins a desperate race against time to learn who her real friends are, who wants her dead, and who will be the Soul Survivor," according to the DVD sleeve description. Subtitled "The Killer Cut", this R-rated release boasts, "More blood! More sex! More terror than the theatrical release!" If you're looking for the promised high level of Blood! Sex! and Terror! you may want to look elsewhere. However, writer/director Steve Carpenter (not the Deftones dude) and cinematographer Fred Murphy do combine for some outstanding visual elements throughout this unfortunately stupid otherworldly story. The camera focuses mainly on sexy Ms. Sagemiller, who will make your knees weak. Bisexual Eliza Dushku (as Annabel) is another fantasy figure. And, the male-minded should love Wes Bentley (as Matt) and Casey Affleck (as Sean).The music by Daniel Licht and song selections are very good - a stroke of The Turtles' "You Showed Me" plays during the paint scene.****** Soul Survivors (9/6/01) Steve Carpenter ~ Melissa Sagemiller, Wes Bentley, Casey Affleck, Eliza Dushku

Anthony Pittore III (Shattered_Wake) Starring in some of the earliest roles, Eliza Dushku, Wes Bentley, Luke Wilson, and Casey Affleck appear in this 'Carnival of Souls'-wannabe, 'Soul Survivors'. . .The story focuses on four friends on a road trip to their individual colleges. Along the way, they stop off at a wild rave that is obviously (well, obvious to everyone but our four stars) of some pagan variety (though no one had a problem getting a pagan symbol seared into their hand to enter). After leaving the rave, main girl Cassie (Melissa Sagemiller) decides the best move is to make out with her ex-boyfriend Matt (Bentley) right in front of her current boyfriend Sean (Affleck) five minutes after Sean confessed his love for her. On the road in the pouring rain, Sean and Cassie argue (as expected) about what just went down. This distracts Cassie from the road and causes a serious car wreck which plummets them over a cliff, killing Sean. After that, Cassie returns to school and sees a lot of random weird stuff that is supposed to be scary or confusing, but isn't. As the mysteries (that no one really cares about) unfold, Cassie begins to learn the answers to what happened that fateful night weeks prior.There are some great films that have used the concept of "Everyone's dead and no one knows it." From 'Carnival of Souls' to 'The Sixth Sense,' it has been done well. 'Soul Survivors' cannot be included in that list. There's very little good about this film. Not everything is bad, but there are sometimes (especially in the horror genre) when outright bad can be more entertaining than just plain mediocre. Sadly, 'Soul Survivors' falls to the fate of simply subpar, below average, mundane, etc. The acting, while not awful, contains some of the worst performances of their careers from the otherwise talented cast. The story isn't awful and has worked before, but it failed to really do much here. The direction is average and takes very little risks. One element that DOES outright suck is the editing. Perhaps they were going for a choppy, muddled, and moronic telling of the story in order to make the film seem more dreamlike/nightmarish. . . but it was more annoying and awkward than dreamlike or nightmarish.Overall, if you're looking for a lame ripoff of 'Carnival of Souls' that fails in almost every way, check out this flick. If you want a quality film, just look at the several this one tries to be.Final Verdict: A generous 4/10.-AP3-

Paul Andrews Soul Survivors starts as teenager Cassie (Melissa Sagemiller) moves out of her home to attend Middleton University in Chicago, there her current boyfriend Sean (Casey Affleck), her ex-boyfriend Matt (Wes Bentley) & his current girlfriend Annie (Eliza Dushku) all decide to go out clubbing together. However emotions run high & while driving back to the campus they are involved in a serious car accident in which Sean is killed. Three weeks later after the funeral & Cassie is trying to get on with her life but she starts to see Sean, she starts to see people chasing her who she thinks are out to kill her, she experiences hallucinations & her life begins to fall apart as she tries to understand what is happening to her...Written & directed by Stephen Carpenter a lot of people seem to hate Soul Survivors which is fair enough, there's absolutely nothing that says anyone has to like it in any way shape or form but I have to say I did actually like it to a degree. Originally made as an 'R' rated film Soul Survivors was cut down to get a 'PG-13' & thus appeal to a larger audience with the obligatory uncut version (called the 'The Killer Cut') being released on DVD shortly after, I will be basing my comments on the original shorter theatrical cut. The script has a few interesting ideas that I liked, I never quite knew what the makers were aiming for as it seems to switch between a psychological supernatural horror & a plain teen slasher (it starts off like a carbon copy of I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) with a car accident involving drunk teens) & I quite liked the unpredictability of it. At just over eighty odd minutes at least it's short, it's not the quickest film ever or even the most incident packed but it kept me interested throughout. I liked the character's & the mystery based plot had me fairly intrigued & I definitely wanted to know how it was going to finish. While watching Soul Survivors I suspect many people just thought it was various unconnected subplots that go nowhere & make no sense but I thought the ending was great & while it's a bit silly & maybe a bit of a cop out I thought it explained all the mysterious events neatly & tidily enough. I was going to say that Soul Survivors stole it's twist ending from Dead End (2003) but then I realised Soul Survivors was made two years prior, in fact both twist endings are basically exactly the same but since Soul Survivors came first I have to give this film the credit for it.Director Carpenter does alright, there could have been a few more scares & more gore (even 'The Killer Cut' is supposedly pretty tame & bloodless) but it sure does look good with some great cinematography. Although having said that I brought a new High Definition Sony telly yesterday & Soul Survivors was the first film I had seen on it so maybe it was just the sheer quality of the picture that impressed me, it did look bloody good though. There are some lesbian overtones but like the gore they are played down & very tame.With a supposed budget of about $14,000,000 Soul Survivors flopped at the box-office but it has good production values & is very well made. Filmed largely in Cicago in Illinois. The acting is alright, I quite liked all the character's & the young teen actors are suitably good looking.Soul Survivors is a film that most people seem to dislike, I wasn't expecting much at all with it's bad reputation but I actually ended up rather liking it for some strange reason I can't quite put my finger on.

Sam_Movie_Buff Like many, I was expecting an entirely different movie from what was shown on the previews for Soul Survivors - but sadly, got something else. It was released to theatres (shockingly) in 2002. It's now 2008 and I'm still kind of stumped.The movie has enough ingredients to make it a slasher/horror hit, but it's just too confusing - and mind twisting for it's own good. Don't go thinking I'm dumb. I do get the story, it's just....the way it was portrayed was, well, horrible. The movie has too many flashbacks and hinted twists that you end up racking your brain, thinking what the hell is going on. Now, I love a movie were I have to use my head, but this just takes the cake. They quickly ditched the "stalker" idea more than a quarter into the movie and focused more on the lead female having flashbacks and thinking she was insane. It just went down the drain from there.It's sad though as the cast are very talented. Plus the movie had a cool, horror vibe setting. So why the bad script? All I know is, when you see the poster for the movie + trailer, you think you're going to get a totally different movie.All in all it was a disappointment. The only reason I sorta enjoyed it was because of the gorgeous Eliza Dushku. But for non Eliza fans, I would take a pass on this one!