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Released by: Breaking Glass Pictures
Released on: Oct. 8, 2013
Directors: Mike Campbell, Todd Johnson
Cast: Mike Campbell, Katherine Browning, Leah Verrill
Year: 2012
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The Movie
Four college friends pay more than just their rent when they move into a house off-campus together, only to find out their landlord is a Nilusa Chito, or soul taker, in 4 Dead Girls: The Soul Taker, a bargain bin horror flick from writer/director/producers Mike Campbell and Todd Johnson.
Right away things get off to a bad start as a young coed is terrorized (at least she's trying to look terrorized) throughout her home by the titular Soul Taker (Mike Campbell), a guy in a cheap brown Monk costume, bad wig, and slapdash old man make-up. The Soul Taker chases her around the house, and by chase I mean walks very slowly after her, slits her wrists, and then swallows her soul in a special effects shot that might have looked halfway decent in season one of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In 1997. It's a scene that lacks any tension, but might inspire a few laughs if you're in the right frame of mind.
After the credits, the Soul Taker—introduced as Devlin Chito—is now wearing a brown Cosby sweater and introducing our main characters around their new rental property. Our renters are Lily, the prude, Bianca, the slut, Lori, Lily's lesbian sister, and Pam, Lori's girlfriend. After showing them around the house, Chito leaves in a totally inconspicuous puff of CGI smoke and the girls- who all look to be in the early-to-mid 30s- unpack, bicker, and split off to shower and/or have sex with their clothes on while their friendly neighborhood Chito watches on a closed-circuit TV. Later, Lori discovers while doing her homework that their landlord's name is similar to the Nilusa Chito of Chocataw mythology, a shadow being which gets its strength from consuming the souls of evil women. Good thing this movie doesn't think being a lesbian or a sexually active woman is enough reason to be considered evil. It does? Oh, well never mind then.
The basic idea behind the film has potential, and for the first fifteen minutes 4 Dead Girls: The Soul Taker gives off the impression that it could be entertaining in a “so bad it's good†kind of way, but that feeling soon fades as the characters quickly begin to annoy. The movie grates with its tone deaf acting and shrill characters that are too irritating to root for, when it's not giving you blue balls (or a blue clit) from badly shot straight and lesbian sex scenes with no nudity. In spite of making a big deal about what a slut at least two of the main characters are, this is an agonizingly chaste movie. There is one brief moment of toplessness amid all this chastity and boredom, but even that is seen through a foggy shower door. The death scenes in the movie are mostly bloodless, feature no gore, and lack even any unintentional humor. Even when compared to most shot-on-video movies, it's an abject failure. It's a horror movie with no tension or scares, and an exploitation movie that doesn't exploit anything, including its lesbians.
Audio/Video/Extras
4 Dead Girls: The Soul Taker is presented in 16:9 on a DVD-9 disc. The image appears slightly cropped and is not full frame. According to IMDB the movie was shot on a Red One camera, but overall the picture quality is poor. Colors are over saturated, and many scenes appear darker than they should be. It's difficult to know if that's because of the quality of the DVD or the film itself, but I'm betting it's the latter.
There are no audio options included, although closed captioning for the hearing impaired is available.
Special features on this disc include: a 22-minute Making Of documentary that focuses on everything you could possibly want to learn about 4 Dead Girls: The Soul Taker, A Special Effects Featurette which is just an effects reel of every shot of budget-priced CGI and make-up in the film, 19 consecutive minutes of Deleted Scenes, a Photo Gallery, a trailer for 4 Dead Girls: The Soul Taker, and a Breaking Glass Pictures trailer reel.
The Final Word
Even for lovers of bad Direct-to-DVD horror, 4 Dead Girls: The Soul Taker has literally nothing to recommend to it. It doesn't work as an exploitation movie because there isn't any gore or nudity. The cheap special effects are laughable, but aren't charmingly bad or over-the-top enough to be memorable. If every performer in this movie acted as weird as Mike "the soul taker" Campbell, then maybe this could have been an enjoyable no-budget misfire, but the rest of the cast is so annoying and unpleasant that there just isn't any camp value in either their performances or this movie.
