Despite probably one of the most memorable and juicy titles for a horror movie I’ve seen in a long time, I forgot all about The Soul Eater pretty quickly. I mean, here I am, some four weeks after I saw the damned movie and I’m struggling to remember what’s it about. This rarely happens to me, especially when it comes to one of my favorite genres. All I remember is that there’s some village, kids, and a brutal murder. I’ll let you in on a little secret now. When I find myself in a situation like this, I usually just play the movie again. However, since this one left such a bland impression on me, I’ll rely on my fast-forwarding while screen-grabbing skills. So, let’s start from the beginning.
The Soul Eater is a French mystery thriller with strong horror elements following two detectives trying to solve a brutal murder in a small town. It’s coming to us from the dynamic duet that brought us one of the better movies in the New French Extremity, Inside. Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury released several mediocre horrors since then never really replicating the effective formula they used while making their debut. The Soul Eater AKA Le Mangeur d’âmes is based on the novel of the same name by Alexis Laipsker. The story takes place in a picturesque small village surrounded by beautiful mountains and forests.
Beautiful mountains and forests that might be hiding a monster. This is something we learn right away as the legend of the Soul Eater is revealed. However, it’s through good old detective work that we’ll get to the bottom of this mystery. We start with a good old bloody murder scene and two detectives who don’t like each other. At first, of course, because, as time goes on, they’ll start working as one to solve the case. So, there will be quite a few stereotypes here but countering them are some pretty unexpected twists. All in all, this is a solid murder mystery with hints of supernatural that I’ll for you to discover.
The beautiful landscapes and grim atmosphere help with a bit of sluggish pacing and just a tad messy storytelling. There will be several really gruesome and quite graphic scenes. They pushed The Soul Eater directly into the horror category doing away with all this mystery and thriller nonsense. I don’t like knives, they’re just so nasty and frightening. Just give me a good old bullet to the head and we’re good. So, when I saw the first crime scene featuring two mangled dead bodies, I instantly knew that this would be at least a movie worth watching if not a masterpiece.
Virginie Ledoyen and Paul Hamy did a terrific job playing the lead detectives. I especially liked Hamy’s emotional and committed performance. The Soul Eater features a lot of different themes, enough for a mini-series at the very least. Despite the relatively longish running time of almost two hours, most of the themes are only superficially explored. Just as we start to get interested in one we’re off to the next one and so forth. I think it would be better if they focused only on one or two. This “dazzle and move on” strategy did not work for me.
I would like to talk more about some of them but I don’t want to spoil anything for you. I’ll just refer you to a couple of movies you might like if you’re looking for something better than The Soul Eater. The first two on our short list are The Crimson Rivers and The Night of the 12th. Both of them feature the same gorgeous landscapes and a lot of mystery. However, if you’re looking for something about the events revealed during that tense finale, Canadian masterpiece Red Rooms is the perfect choice.
Directors: Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury
Writers: Annelyse Batrel, Ludovic Lefebvre, Alexis Laipsker
Cast: Virginie Ledoyen, Paul Hamy, Sandrine Bonnaire,
Fun Facts: In an interview for Eye For Film, this is what Bustillo and Maury said about the transition from horror to thriller genres: “We had horrific elements and police/crime elements and sometimes it didn’t match. So we just focused on the characters, on the emotion. Each time we said ‘Okay, is it adding something to the character? Is it giving an emotion to the audience? And is it the emotion that we need at that moment? Do we need a jump scare here? Is it not going to erase the emotion that we have created before?’ And so we cut a lot of moments with ghost appearances, and gory nightmare moments, just to focus on emotion.”
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IMDb Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28821588/
