- Directors: Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury
- Writers: Annelyse Batrel, Alexis Laipsker, Ludovic Lefebvre
- Stars: Virginie Ledoyen, Paul Hamy, Sandrine Bonnaire
REVIEW
There are a lot of detective procedural films around and more than the fair share of them have a hint of the supernatural or occult leanings. The Soul Eater, playing at Fantasia International Film Festival, falls into this category and in the hands of Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, The Soul Eater rides the line between tense detective work, creepy folklore and crime scene aftermaths that rival any slasher film.
A small town in France has copped a lot of misfortune. A plane crash, violent and unexplainable deaths to townspeople. Now, some missing possibly murdered children. Is the town cursed? Is it just bad luck? Or is it the work of the local bogeyman, The Soul Eater?
Detective Elizabeth Guardino (Ledoyen) arrives in town tasked with investigating the gruesome crimes in the area whilst at the same time private investigator Franck (Hamy) also arrives in the area on the trail of some missing children from a town or two over. Franck thinks the murders and missing children are connected and tries to convince Det. Guardino that they may be looking for the same person or people.
The Soul Eater carefully builds its folklore around the titular character, the tangible evidence goes no further than little hand carved figures but the lore from word of mouth of the people that live in the region helps create a picture. The Soul Eater seems to make families go mad and kill each other, like an infection that travels on the air from family to family. It’s a scary notion that not only is this threat invisible but that it turns families against their own.
This is Bustillo and Maury at their most restrained, holding back their talent and instincts for pure carnage to let the film (and audience) connect the puzzle pieces of this mystery. Using the beautiful scenery, the shots they get are fantastic, cinematographer Simon Roca strikes a great balance between the beauty and the brutality. The murder scenes have a very distinct feel to them, (think Inside if you only saw the aftermath) but this time it isn’t gore for entertainment or to make you wince, it’s almost tinged with some sadness or at least it is treated solemnly. The film is a relatively straight forward ‘connect the dots’ style thriller but midway through the third act when our pair of investigators (and the audience) find out just what has been going on in this small town, that it turns into something more sinister, grittier and all too real. At this point the film explodes with some ultra-violent and bloody scenes, so fret not Bustillo and Maury have absolutely still got a flare for bloody mayhem.
The acting is great with Ledoyen and Hamy as two sides of the same coin. Both have a past that drives them even if their methods are different. These two make the film a lot more compelling, and it’s a great marriage of writing and acting.
The Soul Eater doesn’t break any new ground in the procedural horror/thriller sub-genre but what it does, it does well. Keeping things bleak and uneasy, with an ending to match.
The Soul Eater played at the Fantasia International Film Festival.
Ryan Morrissey-Smith
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