“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.
The filmmakers behind "6 Souls" are not without skill, and it features some very talented actors -- Julianne Moore, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Frances Conroy. So why is it a complete disaster?
This psychological/paranormal thriller is totally lacking in suspense, or an engaging plot, or any kind of visceral impact. Honestly, I struggled to get through it.
The studio provided me with an online screener, so I watched it in fits and starts over a couple of days. No doubt this experience was completely different from sitting in a theater, we're you're immersed in darkness and can't leave ... well, at least not if you're there to do a job.
My guess is if I could leave, I would have.
The movie, originally titled "Shelter," was shot fully five years ago by Swedish directors Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein, from a screenplay by Michael Cooney, a horror specialist ("Identity," "Jack Frost"). I get the sense that it didn't test well, so it was back-burnered while the studio figured out what to do with it. Rather than just dumping it on video, they went with the increasingly common two-tiered strategy of putting it out on pay-per-view with a simultaneous modest theatrical release.
The set-up is that it's a split-personality story -- the sort of thing that has existed as cinematic fodder for 40 years or so, despite being an extraordinarily rare and much-debated diagnosis in the psychiatric field. Count Cara Harding (Moore) among the skeptics -- as the story opens, she's testifying in a case where she basically asserts that the whole concept of someone with multiple personalities is bunk.
One person trying to change her mind is her father (Jeffrey DeMunn), also a head-shrinker, who has encountered what he thinks is a legitimate split-personality case. He invites Cara in to consult, and soon she's swept up in the saga.
Moore and DeMunn have some nice scenes together, part of a lifelong father/daughter chess game. He urges her to challenge her preconceived notions of how the human mind works, while she thinks he's unable to admit when he's wrong. If the movie had actually stayed focus on this dynamic, with the patient acting only as a catalyst to further their conflict, it might have made for an interesting drama.
Instead, the story heads straight into schlocky boo-gotcha territory, with increasing evidence that this thorny case of mental instability is, in fact, actually the work of ... wait for it ... The Devil!
Things end up in hillbilly country, where grim snaggletooth men throw hard stares at Cara as she investigates the case. Eventually, she's brought before The Granny, an ancient crone/mystic/leader, who fills her in on the tale of a faith healer who died in the early 20th century after betraying his people.
It becomes apparent that his horrid curse is being replicated today, with victims bothered by festering sores on their back in the shape of a cross, and a rash of (literally) dirty mouths.
Rhys Meyers flails mightily in the role of the patient, but ends up coming across as more silly than frightening. His abrupt shifts to different personalities are triggered by a phone call requesting to speak with one of his other hosts, at which point his head snaps back and he makes all sorts of odd crunching noises, as if he's practicing self-chiropractic.
His default personality is David, a mild-mannered Southern boy who's confined to a wheelchair. The flip side of the loony coin is Adam, a brash New Yorker who leaps out of the wheelchair, antagonizing Cara with questions about her own family and past. Later we encounter Wesley and Charles, two men who ... well, I shouldn't give that away.
"6 Souls" is a wretchedly unwatchable train wreck of a film.
I'm all for dopey flicks designed to keep small children entertained, or at least distracted, for a while. I've got a rugrat myself now, so I'm sure I'll soon be making the acquaintance of Sponge Bob, Barney and Elmo.
But does programming for kids -- I won't deign to call it filmmaking -- have to be as aggressively bad as "Yogi Bear"?
Straight from the lame school of "Garfield" and "Alvin and the Chipmunks," "Yogi" stars live humans interacting with computer-generated versions of cartoon characters. The effect is not convincing, nor is it expected to be. Every minute Yogi and his vertically challenged sidekick Boo Boo are onscreen, they're calling attention to the fact that they're not really there.
Dan Aykroyd does a reasonable facsimile of Yogi's voice, which was originally done by Daws Butler, who was doing a knockoff of Art Carney's character from "The Honeymooners." Justin Timberlake provides the voice of Boo Boo, and instantly wipes out all the good feelings I had about his burgeoning acting career after "The Social Network."
If you remember, Yogi is "smarter than the average bear," and traipses around Jellystone Park with Boo Boo scheming up ways to steal food from visiting humans. Yogi has a major craving for, as it comes out in his rollicking speech, "pick-a-nick baskets."
Tom Cavanaugh plays Head Ranger Smith, who inherited his post from his father and has spent his whole life learning the ins and outs of Jellystone. Alas, attendance has been dropping for years, and his only companionship is dimwitted Ranger Jones (T.J. Miller), who's a rookie but already has eyes on the top job.
Things get shaken up with the arrival of Rachel (Anna Faris) -- or, as Yogi dubs her, "movie-maker lady." She wants to film a documentary about Jellystone's famous talking bear. Though I don't know how famous he can be if nobody comes to the park to see him.
Needless to say, Ranger Smith and Rachel are soon making moony eyes at each other.
The evil mayor (Andrew Daly) is facing a shortfall, and wants to close down Jellystone and auction off its prime acres to the timber company. So it's up to Yogi, Rachel, Smith and Boo Boo to come up with the cash.
Now, think about that last paragraph. The mayor of a city is going to shut down a massive park encompassing thousands of acres? What kind of park like that is inside municipal limits? And even if it were, Jellystone (a parody of Yellowstone) is clearly a national park under federal jurisdiction.
This movie is dumb, dumb, dumb. At 80 minutes long, it felt like eternity sitting through it. My advice: Run. Run now. If your kids really want to see Yogi Bear, show them some of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
