This film was originally released in Japan and the UK way back in 2010 (as something called Shelter), at which point it received a unanimous score of 0% via Rotten Tomatoes’ “Top Critics” meter.
This film will be released in the United States as 6 Souls via Video-on-Demand this coming Friday … and it currently maintains a unanimous score of 0% via Rotten Tomatoes’ “Top Critics” meter.
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers plays a supernatural psychopath with multiple personalities and several really bad American accents (not to mention a bad pencil mustache).
Jeffrey DeMunn, while most assuredly a nice guy, is an absolute eyesore in this movie (He looks like that puppet thing from Saw … seriously. It’s unbelievably irritating.)
The storyline includes some weird, convoluted subplot involving mutant hill people.
6 Souls makes the rookie mistake of assuming that in the year 2013 mainstream audiences are still naive enough to accept something this fucking insane as even remotely plausible.
6 Souls is guilty of doing that really lazy B-movie thing wherein the more dire and dangerous a situation, the more insistent the lead character must be about going into it alone.
6 Souls is guilty of doing that really lazy B-movie thing wherein characters call the police for help, then completely forget to mention there’s a supernatural madman on the loose.
6 Souls is guilty of doing that really lazy B-movie thing wherein the bad guy is absolutely all-powerful, yet no one sees any reason for extreme caution or public assistance.
6 Souls is guilty of doing that really lazy B-movie thing wherein the bad guy is absolutely omniscient, and yet he cannot figure out which room a little girl is hiding in.
6 Souls is guilty of doing that really lazy B-movie thing wherein an unspeakable evil has been lying dormant in the mountains for the past century, going completely unnoticed until an entire family comes upon it.
6 Souls is guilty of doing that really lazy B-movie thing wherein every character, plot point and situation conveniently appears exactly where and when the screenwriters need it to.
6 Souls is guilty of doing that really lazy B-movie thing where none of the central characters have any full-time jobs, relationships, or other distractions to keep them from wasting all of their time with this bullshit.
6 Souls is unnecessarily vile.
The directors commit the unforgivable – though increasingly frequent – mistake of assuming what makes a good cult film a good cult film is just how utterly absurd it all is (Please note: This is not what makes a good cult film a good cult film).
The directors attempt some really misplaced tribute to Stanley Kubrick (ala The Shining) during the first five minutes of the film. It fails miserably.
Everything – and I mean everything – about 6 Souls is just soooooooooooooooooo damn spooky.
The screenwriters tease the idea that the lead character has a drinking problem during the first 5 minutes of the film, then never (and I mean “never”) follow up on – or even reference – it again.
6 Souls arrives via Video-on-Demand this coming Friday, March 1st (a full month before it arrives in U.S. theaters … not good).
