Let no one say that Hollywood left a stone unturned in its hurry to replicate the success of Scream, even hiring a director whod enjoyed a minor hit with The Kindred (1987), but hadnt made a movie since. Stephen Carpenter mustve gotten the job on Friday, written the script over the weekend and started shooting on Monday because in story terms, Soul Survivors is as smoothly conceived as Plan 9 From Outer Space. Soul Survivors helps itself to bits of other, better films, throws in a gratuitous shower scene, then spends the rest of its length ticking off the clichés. Youd call it slung together, if that wasnt an insult to slung-together movies. So incredibly disjointed that its opening sequence appears to have nothing to do with the rest of the film, Survivors at least starts as it means to go on, with a masked maniac pursuing a starlet to the strains of John no relation Carpenter knock-off music. Over the course of 85 painful minutes, well be treated to more Halloween homages, plus a recreation of Cat Peoples chase scene, and the most shameless theft of all the entire plot of Carnival Of Souls, with all the good stuff removed.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
