Thanks for the memories!

Brilliant and touching

Blistering performances.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

The makers of this film asked way too much of its two young leads, who aren't the most amazing actors and are required to carry nearly the entire movie with just them in an old house. Not only that but the dialogue just isn't there, so no matter what their level of talent they don't have much to work with either.Then there is the direction, there is something very messy about most of the shots, and this usually does not seem to add anything to the theme of the film and just makes things feel confused. Also if this all wasn't enough there are also clear budget restraints that would hurt the film even if it did have decent actors, pacing, writing or editing.There is some slivers of possibly good movie here, but it is hard to really piece them together and not really worth the effort.

A movie that comes in my list of a mediocre but "not quite good" horror movie. Things started very promising. The apostate priest who, cause of a strange reason, kills his whole family. His wife and two older children are killed in an explicit way. Of course one member of the family remains unharmed. The newborn Brian was hidden by his older brother in a drawer. Thus the ritual can not be accomplished and the priest nails his family on a cross and eventually commits suicide. What the actual ritual is, is not really clear in this film. A bit of a weird idea of the priest to connect Christianity to a primitive religion of Egypt.The start wasn't that bad. How the priest slaughters his family gave me the impression that it would be an acceptable horror movie. I could predict that in the distant future the saved son would return to his home as a teenager and would be confronted with his mysterious past. The introduction of Brian and his kind of weird mother pointed out it was clearly a low-budget film. Once the mother goes to the hospital and the boy, now called John Petrie, goes to the town where the house is for sale of which he's the only heir, it gets a little better and even at times a little exciting. The cliché ingredients are again used such as ghosts appearing around the corner, creaking floors and doors that open by themselves. There were also moments when something appears behind someone and afterwards there is nothing anymore when that person turns around . It's all in there, and after the umpteenth time you're kind of bored of it. There's only one commendable moment in the whole film as Brian stands next to his old crib.Then there is the introduction of Emma. A girl that came from i-don't-know-where and moved into the house, because it was already empty for some time. She wasn't very convincing and changed spontaneously from an arrogant kid to a loving and seducing teen girl. They are complete strangers for each other, but suddenly it seems as if they know each other for years. Together they come to the incoherent and incomprehensible discovery what the priest was trying to achieve and something is brought up as the "fifth nail". Then there's a senior police officer who retired after the incident who's still looking for the truth. They will organize a seance to find the solution.And from here on it just get worse. The ghosts look abominable and the effects look very outdated. When victims return as living dead and want to finish the unfinished task, it really starts to look completely amateurish. In particular how the kids save themselves in the final scene. That looked like a really old 70's horror movie. The highlight was a zombie falling into a nail that finished him of.A mixture of all sorts of horror genres with a strong start, but a historically bad endingMore reviews at http://opinion-as-a-moviefreak.blogspot.be/

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, and must admit I tend to be a bit jaded when it comes to some of the newer horror (esp. made for TV) movies. Dead Souls has a good, solid plot and it moved right along in the right direction. The dialogue was well done, the acting great. The eerie atmosphere of the old farm was excellent. I loved this movie because I felt something for the main character, for what he was experiencing, which must have been terrifying. The connection to Osiris was well researched. Michael Laimo, the author of the novel 'Dead Souls' upon which this movie is based, is one of my all-time favorite writers and I'm looking forward to his next book and, I hope, another movie adaption. Great job, Michael, the actors, actresses, director and film crew (make-up artists did an outstanding job as well). Thank you all for helping make this Halloween extra scary.

Wow, for a made for TV horror film, Dead Souls really delivered. The first ten minutes of the movie were startling. I really did not expect to see such a horrific series of events. The film had some gore, but not over the the top, it had violence, creepy ghosts, zombies, and much more. I really enjoyed this film. The story is about a crazed minister/preacher who believes that Jesus rose from the dead because he studied Egyptian magic. He attempts the ritual he finds in the bible on his own family, with disastrous results.I am looking forward to reading some of this author's books. I will read Dead Souls, and from what I hear, The Dmeonologist is his best horror novel. Thanks Chiller for a great original film.