Hmmmm, as with many unfortunate fads in recent horror history (SCREAM's rebirth of the retarded teeny-bopper slasher genre, THE SIXTH SENSE and STIR OF ECHOES's return to ghost stories, and THE HAUNTING and HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL's "we can't think of anything new, so we'll just remake old black and white movies" stint), the most notable of the first year of our new millenium was of the resurfacing of religious horror. Actually, the first rebirth was of the outer space flops (SUPERNOVA, MISSION TO MARS, and RED PLANET), but in horror, it was the religion based nightmares that made it to the big screen. Most prominent of these was the re-release of THE EXORCIST, which included a few deleted scenes. To capitalize on the popularity that EXORCIST was bound to cough up, along came BLESS THE CHILD and LOST SOULS. Sadly, neither of these could even wipe their ass with the same ass paper that EXORCIST uses, but of the two, I was very depressed to discover that BLESS THE CHILD, which featured a barage of story ad film elements that I hate, wound up being superior to a Winona Ryder about the rebirth of Satan. Oh what a crual millenia it's shaping up to be...

LOST SOULS is the directorial debut of Janusz Kaminski. Prior credits include his roles as cinematographer on such varied films as SCHINDLER'S LIST, THE LOST WORLD: JURRASSIC PARK 2, and... gimme a second to stop laughing... GRIM PRAIRIE TALES. Anyway, with such a vivid background in the visual process of epic and not-so-epic cinema, you'd think that Mr. Kaminski would be able to produce a fine work of his own. Instead, he fishes a floater out of the shitter, slaps a title on it, and sends it to the producers, who are just stupid enough to put it into theatres. Guess all that hanging around with Steven Spielberg didn't rub off even the slightest skid mark on Janusz, cuz LOST SOULS is deffinately NOT the next CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. Well, let's beat this horse till the maggots flow, shall we?

We start with some oddly impressive opening credits, as they swim around in a reflective pool of what looks like Mercury. Then we're introduced a biblical verse from the Book of Dude-Mysogeny that says Satan will be reborn on Earth courtesy of a man who is the product of incestuous parents. Our story's main character is our heroine Maya (Ryder): ex-teenage victim of demonic possession by the forces of darkness. Having lived through pure evil and seen Satan firsthand, Maya decides to stick with God and help spread his message, giving in to brainwashing and conservative dress. To open the film, Maya and her friends of the cloth hold an exorcism for a local asylum inmate, at the man's request. The routine demon opression goes badly though, as the man is left with a crippling stroke and Maya's mentor, Father Lareaux (John Hurt), babbling like a misfit. Could he be insane from the incident, or, like in the finale of THE EXORCIST, is he actually the new target of the possession? Looking at the how much the rest of the film tries to copy off of THE EXORCIST, I'd bet heavily on the second guess. Upon examination of numeric writings taken from the crazy guy's room, Maya believes they spell out "Peter Kelson", which happens to be the name of an acclaimed author of books on legal-based psychological study. Speaking of Pete, he's been having these weird dreams as of late, involving him sitting in a room, reading a book titled "XES" and feeling really satisfied with himself afterwards... leave it to an author to associate the pleasures of sex with reading a book...

When Maya goes to the head priests about her theory, they reject it as crazy bullshit (boy, these guys really believe in their religion) and send her on her way. But, Maya's holy amigo John (Elias Koteas of THE PROPHECY) listens to her and starts believing the concept that Pete is going to be the vessle of rebirth for the Lord of the Flies. Afterwards, Maya begins to halucinate (because Satan tries to retake her at times when her faith weakens) and Pete begins meeting an odd menagerie of people who seem to be trying to protect or lead him... yep, he's deffinately the Satan guy alright. Maya looks into Pete's background, likely discovering that Pete was born to a brother-sister couple... see what happens when you reveal bible verses that contain important plot points at the BEGINNING of the film? After checking up on his medical history, Maya finally searches out and confronts Pete, inviting him to join her in a visit to the possessed lunatic in the asylum, hoping that something will happen when the monster is confronted with his soon-to-be master. One little hitch in Maya's plan though, because, like I said prior, the beard-o is left in a state of comatose following his exorcism. So, when the two go, it's all for naught as the two waste their time... though Maya says she saw the dude's eyes open.

The following night, Maya's friend John, starkly convinced that Pete's Satan, attacks the guy at a diner party, waving a gun in Pete's face and mumbling something about a time of transformation before some friend of Pete's grabs the gun and breaks John's neck. Leave it to Elias Koteas to botch something as simple as a point blank assassination and get killed in the process. Afterwards, Pete's good, elderly, Catholic neighbor lady hangs herself, likely due not to the fact that Satan lives next door to her, but because of all that constant devil music the inconsiderate bastards plays at all hours of the night. Then, when Pete discovers that John and Maya were connected, he gets even more pissed, going to the Catholic church Maya lives in and confronting her. When she tells him about the whole "hey, you're the Anti-Christ" story, he goes off the handle, threatens her, then leaves in a tizzy. When he returns to his office to find a psychic waiting for him, who tells Pete things to confirm Maya's story, he bitches HIM out too, kicking him out of his office before wallowing in his own self-pity and confusion. Oh, and something important that psychic tells us, "XES" is not only "SEX" spelled backwards, but it's also Greek numbers for "666"... that would explain his satisfaction after reading it. Come on, if you didn't know he was Satan already, or if your'e too thick to have picked it up by now, just save yourself some ebarassment and shut the video off right now. Then, when you take it back to Buttbuster, pick up something more your speed, like the old b&w Universal monster flicks. They're usually straight to the point enough for YOUR kind. Further digging uncovers the disturbing truth that Pete's preacher "uncle" is really his father, and the "baptism" he gave baby Pete was likely nothing more than a dip in a kiddie pool, all this info courtesy of Maya's prying feminine ways.

The duo go to John's house to see if they can find anything else, and while there they uncover a few religious books John had stolen from the church. He underlined a few sentences that mention the Anti-Christ's host will transform into the unholy one upon reaching his 33rd birthday. Surprise, fucking surprise, Pete's gonna be turning 33 tomorrow afternoon... you could cut the "all too coincidental" atmosphere with a knife it's so damn thick. Also at John's house, Maya and Pete find that the fat bearded lunatic from the asylum is doing much better, not only coming out of his coma, but also escaping to hunt the couple down. After chasing Maya around with a butcher knife a little while, Pete intervenes, telling the man to stop. He'll listen to Pete, because Pete is his demonic savior, right? Nope, the guy lashes out and attacks Pete too... Now, I'm confused... Did beard-o attack Pete because he's just insane and all this rebirth-of-Satan stuff was made up from the start, or did he overcome his possession for a brief moment and try to do what needed to be done to prevent ultimate evil from once again gracing the face of the Earth? Well, considering the later events of the film, I'd say it's the "moment of clarity" part, but Hell, I may just be coming up with shit that the writers never even intended in the first place, thereby making me more insightful and poetic and all around better than the slacker-faced motherfuckers who wrote this crap. Anyway, the crazy dude gets killed. I think it was a gunshot, but I was so confused on why he attacked Pete that I wasn't paying attention. Now the looming final question lies: can the transformation be stopped without killing Pete? That's a question our none-too-dynamic duo will have to answer.

Even deeper exploration into Pete's life uncovers more startling truths, as it looks like everyone he's ever known and loved is in a Satanic cult that's been breeding Pete and taking care of him for this very moment... wait, did the video store accidentally splice this with scenes from ROSEMARY'S BABY? Oh wait, it's a DVD... damn it, I feel REALLY ill at the moment. Anyway, Pete's accusations against his girlfriend Claire leads to a cat fight gun struggle. Maya comes out victorious as Claire's guts are ventilates thusly. Having just committed a justifiable homicide, Pete and Maya then head to Disneyland to live out their Satanic lives amongst their own people... Just kidding of course. The couple instead goes to see the seemingly recovered Father Lareaux, who tells the two that the whole Anti-Christ thing is a load of shit because "God would never let something so terrible happen". But, sensing something wrong, Maya decides to bad mouth the Prince of Lies instead, which really annoys the Hell (pun intended) outta the good Father... yep, he's possessed. So, the remaining priests at the church throw together a quick exorcism for the unfortunate holy man, which ultimately proves to be his undoing. With their best chance at rescuing Pete now shuffling off his mortal coil, the two head off to see Pete's father/uncle/unholy mentor to try and figure out what in the name of Christ's soiled loincloth they're supposed to do now. They make it to the bad guy's church, finding it packed to the hilt with Satanists, including Pete's friends and family. All with shit-eating grins plastered on their faces (speaking of plastered, they must've been on something nice to have 'em THAT happy in church), they threaten to kill Maya if Pete doesn't conform to their ways. Pete sets his gun sights on Uncle Satanist, which, according to Maya, would turn his soul to their ways anyway, contaminating his soul and opening him to Satan's possession... as they say in comedy, "you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't"... again, pun intended. Not one to be phased by spiritual damnation for eternity in the bowels of the firey Underworld, Pete opens up, blasting his uncle, his cousin, and several Satanists of non-descript nature before he and Maya escape to the safety of his SUV. To Hell with that "safety" part though, they were probably safer with the Cultists! That reminds me, why do "city folk" need an outdoors vehicle meant for scaling rocky inclines, mud drenched paths, fallen deadwood and knocking over grizzlies?! Are there really THAT many homeless people in the city that people like Pete feel they need that extra horsepower with which to run them down in the streets?! Is it because SUVs have superior suspension, allowing them to run down the smelly unwashed street people without spilling their Mocha Lattes?!?! Society is a plague...

Upon escape, our first couple of mixed religions hide out in an abandoned service tunnel, where the exact moment of Pete's birth grows ever closer. Pete gives Maya the gun and asks her to, if he becomes the original king o' sins, blow his heathenistic brains all over his fine leather interior. She reluctantly agrees and the time comes... and passes. Pete seems ok, showing no signs of physical transformation and confirming it, asking Maya to put the gun down. When she looks at the dashboard clock and sees the time switch to "6:66" for a moment, she hesitates no longer, planting a tasty ball of lead between Pete's evil eyes. Maya then packs up the gun and just walks away... Was Pete possessed by the dark lord, or did Maya jump the gun a little? Either way I'm not really in the mood to give a fuck, as I'm just glad the film's over. Some of the acting in this film was sadly good, "sadly" because the film in it's entirity was horrid. Winons Ryder looks nice in blonde and though it wasn't her greatest performance, she's done worse. Ben Chaplin made me believe he was Satan at times, becoming a total asshole without over-doing it, but for someone who was supposed to become the Anti-Christ, there were also times where he came off as being a little too soft. The stand out for LOST SOULS would have to be John Hurt, who, though he spent most of his time babbling like he was in a padded cell, used his face and his old man eyes to force intensity one minute and leach our sympathies the next. The scene of his exorcism was fun, especially his final adios. Again, the acting was sadly moderate, if not good. The story though, THAT's where the failure is most prominent. We seem to jump from scene to scene, no real solid theme to connect behind. I kept getting the sense that there was no real plot pointand the movie might have done better in a shortened version, like, as an episode of "Tales From the Crypt"... of course, that would've required some much needed comedy. Anyway, aside from development problems, the main plot is one that's been far overdone over the years, shoved in our face just one year earlier with STIGMATA.

One important thing to note about LOST SOULS is the use of bleaching the actual film to give the movie a look of decay and darkness. This works effectively for some moments, but much of the time it really fucks the flick over, causing shadows to blend and darkness to become almost complete and engulfing at scenes. Sure, sometimes it's cool to be left with a question of "hmmm, I wonder what happened there?", such is the case with the ending of AMERICAN PSYCHO, but visually, such as here, it just leaves us screaming "FOCUS!" and swamping the camera guy with threats of dismemberment. "But it's not my fault!" he pleads, as a mob of angry movie-goers, holding their tubs o' buttered popcorn in a deathgrip as they ascend the stairs into the camera room, foaming at the mouth and brandishing large $27 licorice whips with which to punish the innocent pimply-faced teen for a crime he did not committ. Is this really what you wanted Janusz? You fiend... Also, the jumpy kinetic method Janusz uses to direct the film comes off as handy at times, but since we've seen it a half-million times before, it's really starting to lose it's originality factor. Go back to cinematography Kaminski, and leave the directing to the skinny beard-o guy with the glasses, okay?

DVD X-tras: Commentary track by the director and director of photography; numerous deleted scenes and alternate takes (which also include optional commentary); theatrical trailer; and extensive cast & crew bios.

Sequels: Nope

If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: THE EXORCIST or BLESS THE CHILD