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My Soul to Take | 2010 | R | - 4.8.10
After the presumed death of a serial killer who was terrorizing the town of Riverton, the town is overjoyed with the sudden birth of seven children (Max Thieriot, John Magaro, Denzel Whitaker, Zena Grey, Nick Lashaway, Paulina Olszynski and Jeremy Chu), all born within seconds of the serial killer's death. Now, 16 years after that night, a city is terrorized again by a killer, and it seems that the serial killer has returned somehow. Also with Emily Meade and Jessica Hecht. Directed by Wes Craven. [1:47]
SEX/NUDITY 4 - On two occasions a teenage boy asks a teenage girl to perform oral sex on him, using crude language; one time the teenage girl refuses, saying she will cut off his genitals and bury them, and the second time she agrees.
► The bare chest and back of a teenage boy are seen on two occasions while changing and while standing in the shower. The bare stomach of a pregnant woman is seen (we also see the outline of a hand pressing through the stomach).
► Two teenage girls discuss how another teenage girl is pregnant after she felt pressured by a teenage boy to have sex with him. A teenage boy tells a man that a teenage girl is pregnant. A teenage girl tells a teenage boy that she knows he impregnated another teenage girl.
► A teenage boy makes a crude joke about being sexually attracted to another teenage boy's mother. Teens discuss how attractive a teenage boy is on multiple occasions.
► A teenage girl kisses a teenage boy on the cheek.
VIOLENCE/GORE 8 - A man grabs a teenage girl from behind, slices her neck open with a knife and blood pours from her mouth and neck and pools at her feet; the teenage girl's bloody body, with the gaping bloody neck wound visible, is later seen propped against a burnt-out van.
► A man shoves a knife into the chest of a teenage boy, blood pours from the boy's mouth and a gaping hole in his chest, the man drops him to the ground and we see him bleeding (we later see the boy's dead body being loaded into a body bag).
► A man is seen, blood covering his shirt and face, attempting to stab himself as a young girl watches; he appears to stab himself in the stomach, lunges at the girl and he is shot in the back before reaching her (a teenage girl experiences this scene as a flashback and we see the man stabbing himself and about to attack the young girl again).
► A man rushes toward a teenage girl, her feet are seen being lifted off the ground and the sound of slicing flesh is heard as blood sprays on her feet and pools on the ground; her body is seen being dragged away (her body is later seen with blood on the torso, face and legs, lying on the ground). A man chases a teenage boy, attacks him, slamming his head into a metal pole and then stabs him in the stomach (we see blood as the man tackles the boy).
► EMTs treat an injured man (he is covered in blood and appears dead) and give him an EPI shot; the man sits up abruptly, shouts at the EMTs, grabs a police officer's gun and shoots him (the officer is seen unharmed, removing a bulletproof vest), then shoots another man and another officer (we see the bullet enter one man's face, and blood pours from the wound).
► As a teenage boy describes how he had killed a group of people, we see flashes of bloodied and dead corpses of four teenage boys and two teenage girls. A man looks next to him on a bed and sees a woman with blood and tissue (she appears dead) and he screams. A police officer holds a gun to a teenage boy who is holding a bloody knife (his hands are covered in blood); the boy drops the knife, we see a dead woman lying in a pool of blood, and the police officer asks the boy if he killed her. Flashes of a blood-covered pregnant woman being wheeled into a hospital are seen.
► A teenage boy, face and torso cut and bloody, slowly opens a closet door and another teenage boy stumbles out and falls to the ground, clutching an open, bloody wound on his chest; he gasps and dies as the other teenage boy watches.
► A teenage girl shouts at a teenage boy, accusing him of killing another teenage girl, and he runs away. A teenage boy shouts at a teenage girl, as he chases her through a wooded area; the girl stumbles and after standing up appears to have trouble walking (we see her back covered in blood, but there are no visible cuts).
► A teenage boy punches another teenage boy: one of the boys grabs a knife, holds it to the other boy's face and shouts that he is going to die, or he can choose to live but have the guilt of killing people on his mind; the boys struggle until one of them stabs the other in the stomach and his dead body drops to the ground.
► A man, covered in blood and cuts, riding in the back of an ambulance, grabs an EMT and stabs her in the throat (blood pours from the wound), the driver swerves, the injured woman gasps for air and the ambulance runs off the road. A police officer handcuffing a teen boy is stabbed in the back by a man, and the boy watches and fights with the man, kicking him in the face and dropping a vase on his head; he then grabs the police officer's gun and fires at the man, but misses.
► A teenage boy has a vision of a dead teenage girl, a gaping bloody wound on her neck and blood coming from her face and mouth. A teenage boy's body is seen waterlogged and on the shore of a river, covered in bloody scratches and cuts and an EMT examines it.
► A police officer rushes to an ambulance crash scene (we see the driver of the ambulance with a cut on his forehead and an injured EMT dying on the side of the road), the ambulance blows up, and the driver and EMT are seen away from the burning ambulance and a gurney where an injured man was riding is seen empty and covered in blood.
► A teenage boy hides in a closet with a teenage girl, a man breaks through the door, drags the boy out and holds a knife over him; the boy spits at the man (we see spittle leave his mouth), and the man drops the knife and runs away (we see the boy with cuts on his back and chest, and dried blood on his face).
► A teenage girl shoves a teenage boy against a wall and punches him in the face, then knees him the groin and face as he falls over; he is seen with blood coming from his nose, which he wipes onto his shirt as the teenage girl shouts at him. A teenage boy punches another teenage boy in the stomach, knocking him to the ground and then punches another teenage boy in the arm. A teenage boy punches another teenage boy, knocking him to the ground, until he is pulled away by a man. A man shouts at a teenage boy, and then punches him in the torso (we later see a large bruise on the boy's stomach). A teenage boy slaps another teenage boy in the face. A woman slaps a teenage girl in the face after the teenage girl shouts at her.
► Two teenage boys take turns holding a large knife up to each other's necks, both saying that if they were a murderer they would take the opportunity to kill the other; they eventually drop the knife.
► A man trips and falls to the ground where he finds a bloody knife, which he holds in his hands, transferring the blood to his hands and shirt. A teenage boy stumbles and falls into the shallow bank of a river, as he runs to avoid a group of police officers.
► We see a teenage boy vomit a small amount of vomit and wipe his mouth. A teenage boy wearing a bird-costume spews a vomit-like green substance onto another teenage boy, who punches him, and the boy in the costume then pulls a cord that releases a brown fluid from the costume's behind, implying defecation; a crowd of teenagers watch. After instructing another teenage boy to spit over the edge of a bridge into the river, we see a teenage boy spitting into a river. A teenage boy spits toothpaste into a sink as he is brushing his teeth.
► A man talks frantically to himself and throws a telephone against a wall; the telephone shatters. A teenage boy and a teenage girl smash children's toys into pieces.
► A teenage boy shouts over the phone that he fears a man will have the teenage boy go to jail and will torture him while he is there. A teenage boy standing on a toilet crouches to hide as another person enters the bathroom and they shout at one another.
► A teenage boy tells another teenage boy that he had killed a man accidentally and he describes how he had fought back after the man started beating him and how the man fell down the stairs and broke his neck (we do not see this). A man and a woman discuss the murder of a teenage boy's mother with him. A teenage girl explains to a teenage boy that his father did not die in a car accident, but was a serial killer that killed their mother. A teenage girl tells a woman that the bodies of three dead teenagers had been found. A teenage girl tells another teenage girl that a teenage boy had killed people in the past and spent time in mental hospitals. A teenage boy asks a woman if he had killed people in the past. A teenage boy talks to another teenage boy about how people believe he has killed people and been in a mental hospital; the two discuss how he had not murdered anyone, but that it could be possible. A man tells an older man over the phone that he heard a voice in his head telling him to kill his family. A teenage boy is told that he had been "pulled from his dead mom" and we see a brief flash of a nude baby being placed next to a woman who appears to be deceased. A teenage boy mentions on multiple occasions that his mother is dead. A teenage boy tells a woman that he had to "bury a friend," the woman asks the teenage boy if he had killed a person and the teenage boy says he was burying a crow that had been killed. A man tells a woman that a teenage boy had woken up screaming on two occasions, as well as having an unnaturally panicked reaction to being stuck in a locker. A woman watches a television program where we see a man grabbing a person from behind and holding a knife above their head; the television report explains that the man in the video is a serial killer and has not been caught. We hear a voiceover of a teenage boy saying that he "eats death for breakfast" and "lives in a house made of blood"; he does not explain what he means. A group of teenagers discuss how a serial killer had died on the night of their births and that it is rumored that they must "fight" the man's ghost each year or he will come back to haunt their city. On multiple occasions teenage boys and girls discuss how they need to fear for their lives because a serial killer had been murdered on the day of their births. A teenage girl instructs a teenage boy to punch two teenage boys with varying levels of force. A teenage boy tells anther teenage boy that he will tell a teenage girl that he is beating people up. A teenage boy jokingly tells another teenage boy that he is going to burn down a house with a man inside, as an older man overhears and corrects them. A teenage boy gives a speech to a classroom of teenagers describing how California Condors "eat death," including corpses crawling with maggots.
► We see a flock of birds attacking a group of children on a TV screen. A teenage boy screams as a large puppet rushes toward him and a crowd of other teens. A woman walks into a room, startling a man and he jumps as the woman hugs him. A teenage boy is startled after finding a puppet hanging from a tree.
LANGUAGE 10 - About 51 F-words and its derivatives, 1 obscene hand gesture, 4 sexual references, 20 scatological terms, 11 anatomical terms, 19 mild obscenities, 1 derogatory term for mentally handicapped, name-calling (snot nose kids, dumb, lunatic, brain bomb, morbid, pervert, jockstrap, Sasquatch, fat, stupid, bully, clueless, maggot, nuts, stupid), 1 religious profanity, 2 religious exclamations.
SUBSTANCE USE - A teenage girl smokes what appears to be a marijuana cigarette or hand rolled cigarette in a bathroom (she does not identify it) as other teenage girls watch. A man drinks a can of beer, a woman tells a man that she believes a teenage boy was drunk and the man says the boy was in his "12 step" but does not explain what that means.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Serial killers, small towns, being raised by an adoptive parent, prayers, failing and being held back in school, multiple personality disorder, death of a parent, murder, revenge, high school bullying, California condors, teenage pregnancy, peer pressure to have sex, 12 Step Programs, premature babies.
MESSAGE - Standing up for yourself can be hard. Murder does not go unpunished.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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Become a member of our premium site for just $2/month & access advance reviews, without any ads, not a single one, ever. And you will be helping support our website & our efforts.
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