The Horror Show
Kidnapped Souls
by Juan Frausto
When it comes to horror films, serial killers are very popular. I'm one of the many people who is a fan of such characters when it comes to a fictional medium. I don't condone murder or anything like that in real life, but I've always been partial to more grounded horror. And the simple fact is that there really are psychopaths who go out of their way to claim as many lives as they can. Many movies have been made about the subject in various degrees. The classic Henry: Portrait of a Serial killer is a prime example of a film that allowed the viewer to follow one of these distasteful kind of people in their day to day lives. More times than not, however, films mainly stick with the victims and just use the serial killer concept as a way to humanize slashers a little more. Kidnapped Souls is one of these cases.
Kidnapped Souls follows a group of people who are all locked in the same barn, kept captive by a maniac. It sounds similar to a Saw 2 type of scenario, but the major difference is that the victims don't have to do anything. They are merely handcuffed and killed off periodically. The film shows things mostly from the point of view of those being held captive but occasionally gives us a little inside look to what the killer does when he is on his own. It is all framed by the killer's only remaining survivor who is being interviewed by the police.
The identity of who's involved is made no secret to the audience, but the film doesn't really go out of its way to use that secret information to build suspense. Each victim has some sorted thing in their past that they feel bad about and this element is a good decision for the film. It keeps things moving and the anthology film fan in me likes the little segments, as small as they are. The killer himself is of the fairly typical variety. You can tell the filmmakers are trying to make him seem crazy and disturbing, but it's too obvious they are racking their brains about it. The killer wears a mask and sticks his tongue out a lot. He whips himself when he gets sexual urges and all that basic “sicko” stuff that we've seen a million times.
The acting varies from person to person. Some of it isn't bad at all, while other performances seem like something you would see in porn. Not the high-quality stuff. Internet porn. The writing is fairly basic and the characters go through the motions. There's a lot of screaming and “why are you doing this?” thrown around. It's not that the reactions seem unrealistic, but they're too expected and generic to come across especially real. It's a problem when characters claim they have been locked up for weeks and they look exactly like if it were their first day there.
More than anything, I am a brutal, extreme, shock horror fan and I can't help but wish this had gone in that direction. The premise is so basic that it is begging to be filled with as much torture and degradation as possible. But instead, it plays fairly dull in that area and the level of violence would be more than acceptable on basic cable. I doubt it was the intention of the creators to make a soul-crushing shock film so I can't really complain, but it seems like a waste.
To the film's credit, it never becomes overly boring at any point. I've seen a lot of cheap horror flicks that I found myself begging for them to end. This is not one of them. While it's not super engaging, it keeps moving and has enough going on to at least be worth the watch. Even if some touches such as the setup and the characters are standard, I legitimately didn't know where it was going. Some plot points you can see coming a mile away, but the overall concept was still somewhat of a mystery.
Kidnapped Souls is never painfully in line with a ton of other movies out there, but it doesn't take many chances either. Horror induces fear, but horror films themselves should always be unafraid. This movie felt like it wanted to taste more blood than it ultimately does, and I don't see why it didn't take things to the next level. The budget looks like it could have had at least a little more gore and clever depraved concepts don't cost anything if you're really creative about it. I want to feel seeped in sickness with the main villain, but he seems more like the less successful little brother of a lunatic His attributes never feel completely authentic and it seems more-so that he's trying to mark boxes on some “crazy checklist.”
All in all, I'm not sorry that I watched Kidnapped Souls, but it's also not a film I see myself remembering in the long run. It doesn't have enough energy or unique turns to really set itself far apart from the tons of other movies of its type. It isn't a worthless effort by any means, but it could have been something more..
PJ Griffin, HMS
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