FILM REVIEW - Dead Souls

Dead Souls is a 2012 Horror Film that premiered on the Chiller Network. It is based on a book by Michael Laimo that was first published in 2007.

PLOT

For eighteen-year-old Johnny Petrie, the dilapidated farmhouse in Maine meant a way out. When the letter arrived saying he had inherited an estate from a man he'd never heard of before, Johnny knew he could finally escape the hell of living with his religious zealot mother and drunken father. He didn't realize that the hell he was moving into would be far, far worse.

The previous owner of the estate was Benjamin Conroy, a man obsessed with securing eternal life for himself and his family--even if he had to kill them to do it. Conroy's ultimate ritual, a perverse ceremony of blood and butchery, went hideously wrong, denying him the immortality he sought, leaving him and his family dead. But now that Johnny has arrived at the house, Conroy's spirit will have a second chance....

WHY I WATCHED

If you are a regular follower of my blog ramblings then you might know that I am a huge fanboy  of one Magda Apanowicz, a young Canadian actress I first saw in one of my favourite Sci-Fi shows Kyle XY. She played Andy Jensen who ended up as Josh Trager’s girlfriend and a close friend of Kyle himself.

Magda Apanowicz also starred in the ill fated Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica which charted the beginning of the Cylon menace. Needless to say that show was great but the slow, slow start and the mid-season break were not helpful. So in the end Magda +horror film sounded like a winner to me and therefore here we are.

WHAT I THOUGHT

I was impressed by this offering from the Chiller Network who I knew absolutely nothing about before I started hearing about Dead Souls. What you get is a solid horror film that doesn't skimp on plot or interesting characters. With horror films it is too often that you end up choosing one of what you want from gore, an interesting plot or three dimensional characters. You get all of that here and more.

The two leads are believable and interesting I almost instantly bought into their stories and their eventual chemistry. The story moves along at fair old rate even the initial flashback giving you the background stays brief enough to be interesting and more than gory enough to make you wince.

Dead Souls is an excellent horror film that manages to skilfully skirt all the traditional horror pitfalls. What we get is a great film with a plot that keeps you interested and more than enough scares to have you throwing your popcorn all over your living room.