Soultaker (1990)

I usually try to make entries based upon my Netflix viewings, since that way the films are fresh in my mind. Well, after Peyton Place, I decided to indulge myself and get a Mystery Science Theater 3000 Episode. Since I haven't been the best blogger in the world, what with school starting, I figured I would go ahead and take the opportunity to comment on this horrible little film, also known as Soultaker.

The film revolves around 4 teens who are killed in a car accident, the impact throwing their souls from their bodies, leaving their bodies comatose and their souls on the run from The Soultaker (Joe Estevez), a grim reaper type individual who harvests souls by placing little black rings against their bodies.

Things are complicated when The Soultaker realizes that Natalie (one of the teens) is either a reincarnated version of the woman he loved (and eventually killed for cheating on him) or she just happens to look exactly like her.

This is where Soultaker gets most of its "so bad it's good" moments, from he fact that Vivian Schilling, who plays Natalie also wrote the script, which seems like an effort to boost her self esteem. The entire film is basically about how beautiful she is and how she had two men madly in love with her, even though she looks like Tonya Harding. There's even a scene where she is undressing in slow-motion while her "mother" (The Soultaker in disguise) ogles her teenage body, it's really gross.

There's also an odd attempt at adding a Romeo/Juliet type aspect to the relationship between Natalie and her boyfriend Zach, making her upper class and making him lower class, but all it ends up doing is adding a bizarre homoerotic subtext to the story. You see, Zach's best friend, whose name I cannot remember, is totally against the relationship, because of the class difference. But he's a little bit too passionate about it, and he is the ultimate reason the teens die, because he's driving the car that crashes and it only crashes because he decides to go way over the speed limit because of his issues with the relationship (I'm not sure how that resolves anything, but there you go.) It's very odd and it seems like Zach's BFF has more interest than just being friends with him.

Plus, the film doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Apparently if you murder someone, you must become a Soultaker, which Zach's BFF eventually becomes, even though the crash was caused by THE Soultaker stepping in front of the car and making him swerve. Plus, according to this film, Heaven exists in an upper story of the local hospital, and if there is a heaven, where all the souls go, then how is Natalie the reincarnated version of this guy's long-lost love?

But really, it's just a horrible movie, the acting's horrible, the writing is horrible, but hopefully that poor unattractive girl got a bit of self-esteem out of the whole thing.