input: This is not a very good movie, but it's not a stinker either. It is very confusing and unnecessarily long so rent it at your own risk.

My GF and I have figured this movie out (we think) so here it is:

***MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW***

Firstly, this movie is actually quite simple after you remove all of the confusing unconscious-dream-state junk (95% of the movie.)

Ignoring the junk, what REALLY happened is this: A group of school friends go to a rave one night. They leave and get into a car accident where everyone but Cassie and Sean die. That's the simple cut down version. (That's right, I said Sean, bear with me)

Right after the accident, Cassie lays in the hospital stuck in between life & death right up until the very end of the movie. This is where the dream part starts.

The movie is called SOUL Survivors, right? Cassie's mind and soul carries on after the accident interacting with the other souls (Annie, Matt, Raven, the 2 weirdos and Jude) along with images conjured up by her mind (Sean, school and everything else around her). The souls continue doing what they were defined as: Annie the rave-going chick, the 2 weirdo-killers (from opening scene), Father Jude still helping people etc.

We are then taken on a very long ride, shown lots of images (many of which my GF and I still can't tie in) but it all boils down to it not being Cassie's time to die.

At the end, Cassie wakes up in the hospital after being "dead" for a while. Her family and Sean are there. This is reality again. She's OK.

Then the director adds a little extra spice by trying to confuse us again by showing a little dream snippet of her in the wheelchair being strangled. But this part is really just a nightmare, and she wakes up beside Sean, obviously still dealing with her traumatic experience.

Due to space restrictions, we didn't cover every little thing, but feel free to drop us an e-mail if you want to.

Is the sentiment of this review positive or negative?

pos/neg ans: negative

input: It takes a very special kind of person to make a movie that is so wretched, beguiling, disgusting and repulsive, but make it in a way that also makes it brilliant and the quintessence of personal cinematic liberation. Crispin Glover, in all of his "out there" antics and predispositions, truly made something that is unique. In a world that has become starkly partisan, this film seems to evade the standard lines of creativity and art and effectively startle everyone.

Right off the bat, the film takes on a rather distant paradigm (if there really is a model at all) and initially shapes it with the likes of Shirley Temple in front of a swastika and naked women pleasuring a man with cerebral palsy. It's rather shocking stuff, but if you had the opportunity for the Q&A sessions after the screenings, it clearly opens up a bag of worms that leaves you wondering whether this is art or just the lowest common denominator. In either guise, you sense the tremor that this film will ultimately cause. It will never be accepted, not even by the supposed auteurs of the world who boringly speak about the human condition. You may not like it, but it is certainly something worth watching.

Is the sentiment of this review positive or negative?

pos/neg ans: positive

input: Sorry, but aside from Kim Basinger doing a good job acting scared, this was one of the worst thrillers I've seen in awhile. Logic is thrown out as 4 young guys terrorize this woman outside a crowded mall then shoot a security guard. Yet no one seems to notice. Then, instead of screaming for help or racing back to the mall, she drives off and ends up in the middle of the woods with the guys in hot pursuit. I can't even describe how silly it is seeing this woman fleeing from 4 retarded thugs, carrying a red toolbox, screaming for God to come help her, and then having sex with one of them after brutally killing the others. Please trust me, this is bad and a bit tasteless as well.

Is the sentiment of this review positive or negative?

pos/neg ans: negative

input: This is one of the worst movies i've ever encountered, but i want to say that some of the criticisms i had heard turned out to be unwarranted..

As far as pure film-making technique goes, this director is competent. He's held back by the limited budget and the VHS camera, but the actual editing, camera angles, camera movements and scene staging are pretty professional. i've seen many movies where the "directing" was much worse. At least the scenes flow in a way that is not confusing and he has a few clever shots here and there. Also, the forest scenes contained a decent atmosphere. There is only so much you can do with a VHS camera, and he does a nice job as far as the technicalities go. As far as artistic merit, there is none. The scene where the camera pans down so that we can watch a guy urinate in the woods for 15 seconds sort of epitomizes the artistic style of the whole film. This is pure trash... Total garbage.

The gore is decent for a film in this budget range. , it's obviously fake but there's lot's of it, and it's very outlandish..

I saw the American version with the intentionally campy dubbing. This was a good idea (and it's the only thing that allowed me to make it through the film)... Unfortunately, it's overdone, especially towards the end.

It's really a terrible film, but i have to recommend it for it's camp value. It's really hard to find a movie that's worse than this and that sort of puts it in a unique category.

Is the sentiment of this review positive or negative?

pos/neg ans:
negative