Friday, October 10, 2014

Horrorthon Review #10 - 6 Souls (2009)

Hey, a friday night treat!  A scary movie that not only had an original premise, but I haven't seen it before, and it's got Julianne Moore in it!  Shit, an hour and 45 minutes of Julianne Moore is treat enough for a friday night, but in a horror movie I haven't seen before?  With an original premise?  Wheee!

Okay, so here's the movie.  6 Souls (2009) is about a psychiatrist, Cara (Julianne Moore) who's dead set in her ways.  According to all the latest psychological murmurings, there's no such thing as multiple personality disorder, like we've believed, and have seen movies about, for the last 40 years or so.  Makes you wonder if the psychiatrists have any goddamned idea what they are doing over there, or just like handing out all the rainbow-colored pills for no reason.  Anyway, Cara's dad, also a psychologist, or psychiatrist, whatever (it's not that I don't know the difference, it's that I don't think it was made clear which type of shrink they were), thinks she's lost her ability to question herself, to think about life, and why things happen the way they do, so he sets her on a case.  A man has come into his care, by the name of David something or other.  David's paralyzed, the result of an accident.  Cara examines him, he seems mentally fine, and she asks her dad what's going on.  Her dad calls David on the phone, and asks to speak to Adam.  David suddenly becomes Adam, and scares the bejeesus out of Cara, who then becomes curious, and begins to investigate.

This movie was pretty decent except for the religious overtones, and the total lack of any real message here.  Refreshingly, there's no stupid kids here, making stupid decisions, and deciding to peek into the basement when they know there's a killer down there.  It's easy enough to see what's coming once you get the background, but until then you have no idea which way the movie is going, and that's unusual.  All the characters seemed to make fairly reasoned, emotionally-driven but wise decisions based off their beliefs and experiences, which is kind of cool.  Makes the characters feel layered, somehow.  There's a lot of surprises in this movie, and they tend to draw you in, and then drag you along at a fairly rapid pace until the conclusion.

There's a bunch of dead bodies, mysterious illnesses, multiple personalities, witchcraft, and sadly, no nudity, although Julianne Moore is getting on in years, so maybe that's a good thing.  Still, she's one of the most talented, and easily the most underrated actress out there, so I'm sure if she'd wanted to do a shower scene and turn me on like a light switch, she probably could have.  Excellent supporting cast.  I recognize almost all of them from other things, so it's definitely a cast of veteran actors here.  I'm surprised this movie didn't make a bigger splash back in 2009.  Maybe it didn't get hyped up like most Hollywood blockbusters, who can say.  I certainly don't remember hearing about it.

The movie does come off a little preachy.  No, there's not a lot of bible-thumping, but Julianne Moore is the only character in the cast with faith (minor spoilers coming up), so she's apparently the only one immune to whatever is going on around her.  There's an old Granny with witch-like powers, but apparently, she believes in ...  what?  God?  Jesus?  Catholicism?  Witchcraft?  The flying spaghetti monster?  Who knows.  Whatever she believes in, she's apparently immune to the process, too.  What I don't get is, given the end of the movie, you find out that Granny is ultimately responsible for what's going on, but..  for some strange reason, she now can't reverse it?  Makes no damn sense.  End spoilers.

See, this is the problem with movies nowadays.  On the surface, they look good.  When you're watching them, they seem exciting.  Then you try and piece together what the hell you just saw, and it all falls apart.  The movie literally makes no sense, and there's no explanation.  The whole premise doesn't stand up to reason.  It's like getting punched in the face by a random stranger on the street.  Sure, it's very exciting for a moment, and then you're left with a bloody nose and wondering what the hell just happened.  A good movie will fit all the pieces together at the end so when the movie is over, you not only go OH I GET IT, but then you get to explain it to the slightly less intelligent members of the viewing audience.  In this case, there's nothing to explain, because I heard everything the movie was saying, but it was speaking gibberish.  It's like deciphering the Voynich Manuscript and then realizing it's just the insane ramblings of an old man who spoke an obscure dialect of Swedish.  Which, would explain all the pictures of naked women.

I guess the only goal this movie is really successful at, is getting you to ask questions, like wtf was that all about?  Shit, Zombie Ass, Toilet of the Dead, made more sense than this did.  Everything was completely explained there.  It was an absolutely ludicrous explanation involving some weird ideas and a TON of suspension of disbelief, but at least the movie didn't have me wondering what the hell kind of sense the movie made afterwards.  And, there was nudity in it.  So, forget 6 souls.  It's stupid.  Go back and watch Zombie Ass again.

As far as the Voynich Manuscript goes, I'm pretty sure it's just done in an obscure language, written about obscure plant species.  I mean, there have been hundreds of thousands of languages, dialects, and variations that have allowed humankind to communicate with each other for the last hundreds of thousands of years.  It's perfectly reasonable to assume that this manuscript was written in a dead language that nobody speaks anymore.  As for the plants, well, maybe it was written by a botanist who'd created his own species, or maybe these plants exist out there undiscovered somewhere.  As for the drawings of naked woman, well, that pretty much confirms it's not alien in origin.  heh

That's all for tonight.  Strangely, my social life reared its ugly head once more.  See you guys tomorrow night for another review!

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