Video review: "6 Souls"

“6 Souls” is more interesting to ponder as a cinematic failure than as an actual movie.

It stars some very talented performers, including Julianne Moore and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. And the Swedish directors, Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein, certainly know how to make a movie visually interesting – the film is a slick blend of muted colors and inky shadows.

So how come this horror/thriller is such a complete disaster?

It helps to know the film was shot five years ago, and hung around the studio’s vault gathering dust before finally being shunted out to pay-per-view and a modest theatrical run this spring.

Screenwriter Michael Cooney breaks out that moldy oldie of a story concept: multiple personalities. That stopped being a fresh idea for a screenplay about 40 years ago. Never mind that most psychiatrists consider it bunk.

Actually, heroine Cara Harding (Moore) is among them. The story opens with her dismissing split personalities as a figment. But then she’s introduced to a patient, David (Rhys Meyers), who appears to be the real McCoy.

David is a shy, sweet Southerner confined to a wheelchair. But Adam is a brash lothario who walks unimpeded. Rhys Meyers emotes each of these shifts between personalities by going into a twitching, spasmodic orgy of tics.

Other personalities manifest themselves as time goes by, and we soon lose track of who’s who. Plus a supernatural element enters late in the game, along with a hillbilly mystic muttering something about curses and the Devil.

What’s supposed to be scary instead comes across as incredibly goofy … then tiresome.
As for video extras … there aren’t any. Nada, zip, zilch – not even a theatrical trailer. This only lends credence to the notion that “6 Souls” got dumped by its studio.

Not that it didn’t deserve it.

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