in my opinion , a movie reviewer 's most important task is to offer an explanation for his opinion .
but with soul survivors , i 'm so full of critical rage that this review is liable to turn into a venomous , uncontrollable rant , obligations damned .
however , protocol forces me to do otherwise .
soul survivors tells the story of four college - bound friends : cassandra ( melissa sagemiller ) is sweet and innocent .
party girl annabel ( eliza dushku of bring it on ) is dating world - weary harvard student matt ( wes bentley ) .
matt still has feelings for cassie , who is now dating sean ( casey affleck ) .
driving back from a creepy , gothic party , the quartet gets into a horrific car crash .
sean dies , leaving cassie crestfallen and guilty , made worse because sean saw matt kiss cassie just minutes after sean revealed his love for her . as cassie mopes through her classes , she sees the ghost of sean all over the place , urging her to follow him .
along with being plagued by other ghastly visions , cassie is also followed by thugs from that strange party .
annabel and matt try calming her down , but no one shares cass 's visions .
she has to figure out this purgatory all by herself .
rarely have i seen a director
so thoroughly mishandle material .
in his directorial debut , steve carpenter does nothing to provoke the audience into feeling any emotion .
when the movie 's camerawork is n't pedestrian , it 's clich ?
d .
carpenter 's need for close - ups , his camera following sagemiller from behind , drain the movie of any anticipation .
we already know what to look for , so why should we be surprised ? and the sense of scary atmosphere , which was recently done so well in the others , is nowhere to be found here .
carpenter 's script relies on random twists and turns with a minimum of logic and loads of laziness .
this is a movie where the ending features one character providing an explanation about the plot to another character , which is one of the lamest screenwriting devices around .
the second lamest device , of course , is the , " oh , it was all a dream " resolution . and guess what ?
this movie has both ! not that the main body of the film , which has sagemiller constantly running in fear or having a nervous breakdown , is anything worthwhile .
since there 's no captivating dialogue , no character chemistry exists anywhere .
that 's a huge problem , since the four main characters are supposed to be couples .
carpenter ca n't even get the smutty scenes right , which are becoming more prevalent in pg-13 movies like bring it on and get over it .
[ the film was recently re - cut from an r rating to get more kids in the seats .
-ed . ]
when sagemiller and dushku dance together at a club , he rarely shows them in a full shot and he never keeps the camera on them for longer than a second before relating to some michael bay - style quick cuts .
and when sagemiller and dushku take a shower together after getting covered in paint , they 're fully clothed . regardless ,
any sexiness in that scene is undercut by its stupidity .
why would n't they wash the clothes in the sink or in the washing machine ?
why would they shower in their clothes ?
what if they were n't covered in latex paint ?
the cast , which will see better material in the future , would be wise to leave this one off their resumes .
i felt sorry for affleck , who i 've liked in other movies , and bentley , who was great in american beauty .
dushku , who possesses an alluring femme fetale quality , has got to stop taking roles belonging to rose mcgowan .
as for sagemiller ( star of the aforementioned get over it ) , i want to see her in a movie where she plays a person , and not an object for gawking .
and i 'm not even getting into luke wilson 's role as a priest .
at least he 's friends with wes anderson .
bottom line : soul survivors is so awful i feel compelled to knock on doors and warn people about it .
Output: N