Soul Searcher (2005) User Reviews

Not bad but Not Great!

[themadmullah · 4/10 · 25 August 2006]

Just rented this, another low budget British action martial arts… yawn. There are so many of these out there now that to be honest I'm starting to get bored. In the past two years a rash of badly acted and poorly shot British and even US low budget actioners have been released.

Working as I do for a cross Atlantic review site I get screeners of these and being that my speciality is action (and that I'm British) I get the dubious pleasure of reviewing an ever growing stack of DV features.

Soul Searcher is okay, a solid 2 ½ star movie. It's not badly acted, or badly directed, or badly shot but at the same time there was little to stand out. The central lead was dull and lacked life, and the film just felt like it needed something more to make it stand out.

As for the extras, it's an impressive pack to be sure but for my money the director should have been stopped from making his rather self involved behind the scenes documentary. If I hear how hard is was once more I will scream.

Great Idea, mediocre execution, poor acting

[swheeler · 4/10 · 23 October 2005]

Soul Searcher tells an interesting story - what if a shy guy is offered the chance to become the Grim Reaper? The movie shows brief flashes of brilliance, especially the wonderfully detailed story about how the tradition of the Grim Reaper began. Unfortunately, that is the only interesting story that is fully told in this rocky turn at comicbook-becomes-reality.

The film's quality is low-budget (especially the banshee!), filmed at night and many of the scenes feel rushed. The acting is disjointed, with some actors being much better than others. Special effects suffer to the point that they can be laughable.

Yet somehow you care enough to root for the hero, who you know will vanquish the evil Dante....who might just be the man who wrote about hell centuries ago. To be honest, I'd love to see this story as an animated series. I want to know more about each character's story, and that just doesn't happen in this choppy movie. I'll keep my eyes out for more from director/producer/co-writer Neil Oseman.

"I'm not really big on movies..."

[The_Phantom_Projectionist · 3/10 · 16 November 2015]

The one bit of SOUL SEARCHER trivia that no viewer can avoid is that it was produced for 28,000 pounds – the modern-day equivalent of about $53,000. While this shows that first-time director Neil Oseman is an extremely frugal filmmaker who can pull off a fully-fledged action-fantasy with the minimum of resources, I am sorry to say that it does not make for a very good movie. To me, SOUL SEARCHER is among the worst kinds of films – a chore to watch. There are some good things to it, but overall, this just isn't very fun.

The story: An unsuspecting young man (Ray Bullock, Jr.) is recruited by the Grim Reaper (Jonny Lewis) to take over his position and stop the plan of a supernatural entity (Aj Nicole) to merge earth and hell.

The primary occupation of director Oseman is cinematography, and as a result, the movie looks good at a glance – not at all like the jerky indie crud you usually associate with this kind of budget, despite the amplitude of hand-held camera-work. There are also some traditional effects used to create various supernatural imagery, and I appreciate the 80s throwback. However, beyond this, the movie is in bad shape. The editing could be a lot better and a lot of the computer-generated effects are not integrated particularly well. The relentless nighttime setting is depressing. Worst of all is the lack of interesting characters. Absolutely none of the people inhabiting this picture are either likable or intriguing enough to merit investment in the storyline, and as a result, a handful of cool plot devices (e.g. the umbilical cord concept of ghosts) are wasted.

Inexplicably, this is also a martial arts movie. The making-of feature goes on about how the filmmakers strived to add a Hong Kong flavor to the fights and how the Hong Kong style is superior to the western style, but these notions are meaningless because, for the most part, these fights suck. The eastern influence is indeed there in the kung fu choreography and the marginally longer shots, but the combatants are almost universally slow and often look very uncomfortable swinging swords and scythes at each other. Their poor pacing and the lack of sound effects do not help, to the point that I only give one of the seven brawls (the final showdown) a passing grade.

I really wanted to like this movie, but too many cinematic shortcomings converged to make this anything more than an exercise in viewer patience. The 98-minute runtime absolutely dragged, and the best part of this experience has been writing this review. Nick Oseman demonstrated that a lot can be done with relatively little money and a lot of determination, and I would be happy to see him helm a bigger-budgeted feature, but this passion project of his is not nearly as good as I had hoped it would be.

Go to Hell! But in a Good Way!

[zepulonmpike · 8/10 · 4 March 2006]

More distinguished film critics than myself have determined that you should judge a film in terms of what it sets out to achieve. Director Neil Oseman set out to make a SFX laden action/adventure picture on a budget of around £20,000. You can't get a half decent four door saloon for that. So in my opinion the films existence should be applauded alone. But there's a lot of other good stuff going on. Above all else the film has a strong and consistent visual style which is complemented by some surprisingly good Harryhausen influenced special effects.

Obviously there are issues, but there are always going to be with a twenty grand extravaganza. They are mainly down to narrative issues, overall the story works very well, young man is trained to be grim reaper whilst falling in love and trying stop a madman for opening up the moat of souls. The problems lie with tiny things like ezekial just up and leaving before the big battle.

At the end of the day, if you read the directors journal, Neil Oseman Had to do EVERYTHING, co-write the script, and produce. All this on the tiniest of budgets with no help from the BFI or Screen West Midlands who are probably at this moment handing out cash for another gritty urban drama about something controversial. or a cockernee gangster film. Nobody makes this kind of film in this country anymore.

In the end, Soulsearcher is a great, entertaining movie that harks back to the likes of Back to the Future and Ghostbusters. If you can't see past the flaws to see whats been achieved then clearly low budget movies aren't for you.

Great Movie

[jaszczak · 8/10 · 5 September 2006]

If it was not for the visual effect I would have voted 10 instead of 8, I loved the story and the actors did very well, I predict a great future for Oseman, I'm pretty darn sure this guy will become one of the best directors out there..

the Acting was good, the story was good , the few things I didn't like about this movie, was the fighting choreography, and the special effect but what can you expect with a 30.000$ budget..

I'm all a very pleasurable movie, worth watching.. if you can look away from the fight scenes and the special effect.. this movie is a winner..

I wish I could afford to give Oseman a 3.000.000$ budget instead and ask for a remake..as long as he used the same actors

good........and bad

[masterblaster2000 · 15 January 2008]

the first time I tried to watch this I got bored and switched it off!

I gave it another shot and it does get better towards the end and looks impressive, just a shame the dialogue/story is so poor. What was achieved with the low budget is actually quite impressive visually, apart from a few dodgy effects. I think what this film would've benefited from is a stronger script.

One thing I can praise is the effort gone into the DVD extra's. I found the extra documentary, film school masterclass more entertaining than the film itself!

.

great first try...

[janecreates · 6/10 · 1 December 2006]

For a film that I have just read cost £20k, it was brilliant. however, i feel that certain areas not to do with how much it cost needed some attention! The script needed a bit more clarity and development. I thought the editing wasn't as tight as it could be - there needed to be more pace. But the sound, camera work/lighting were fab for its budget. Generally he got some high production values in - The fight scenes were choreographed pretty well too. I feel filmmakers like this should be encouraged, and I hope he finds a good team to help him out next time - he does deserve some decent funding. It's a very imaginative first attempt - well done! People like him should be helped out in the British film industry more. It's refreshing not to see yet another boring low budget drama or 'gritty' movie - they always seem to get made. It just goes to show that in this case low budget doesn't have to mean boring

Revolutionary UK horror/fantasy

[cg_regan · 10/10 · 22 January 2007]

It's tempting to start this review with 'if you can get past the dubious acting and cheap special effects' but actually, about an hour into the film, I found myself so involved in the story that the production values ceased to be a problem. The script and the characters are what really hold the film together and the inexperienced actors do manage to bring it to life enough for the viewer to be taken along with it. The most amazing thing about this film, though, is the ambition and ultimate achievement of the filmmakers. Soul Searcher is by no means perfect, but what is impressive is that the filmmakers have not allowed the small budget and the fact that horror/fantasy is pretty non-existent in the UK define the kind of film they wanted to make. This is not for everyone, and is perhaps purely a film for filmmakers as an understanding of how much time and effort goes into making any kind of film with no money helps to appreciate what a monumental achievement Soul Searcher is (and the DVD has more than enough extra's to make this an essential part of any aspiring filmmaker's collection). At the same time, there is a well-told, engaging story here that often takes the film beyond its low budget roots into what will surely be remembered as a cult classic.

Should be given more credit

[booth1976 · 10/10 · 25 April 2007]

I found myself amazed at what Neil Oseman managed to squeeze from his tiny budget with Soul Searcher. It's a shame that critics and the industry in this country didn't leap on it with enthusiasm in the same way that the American's did with El Mariachi because it's just as big an achievement.

As for entertainment value, I was expecting something incredibly badly acted from what I've read. This just isn't the case, the acting is competent, the cgi effects are of the lower end but for me this did not remove me from the experience. In fact on many occasions I thought. "Wow, how the hell did they do that and how ambitious where they for even trying it in the first place!" And the work with miniature's is amazing. The train sequence is simply brilliant.

I think for any film students, filmmakers, or anyone getting into film-making this is an absolute must. However for the casual viewer this also comes recommended. It's a fun, effects laden low budget adventure with a lot of charm.

A superb example of...

[JinxPat · 7/10 · 8 September 2006]

...faith, determination and guts producing an interesting indie movie against all odds. Some of the shots pulled off in this are flat-out incredible for such a low-budget flick, and the breakdowns of how these were achieved on the DVD make for fascinating viewing. I don't think I've ever seen someone try and pull off this kind of movie on this kind of budget before, and it's something to behold. The plot feels a bit muddled in places, (especially in the final third), but the pace never flags and neither does the level of invention. Anyone carping about rough edges has missed the point by a mile. I'm looking forward to seeing if the crew have enough energy to try this again further down the line, as I'll pounce on the DVD straight away if they do.

As a diversion, it's worth it

[Rosettes · 7/10 · 7 June 2008]

This was, no puns intended, a movie I picked up to watch in replace of daytime TV during my off time from my graveyard shift job.

It has two downing points to it. First of all, it's theme could be related to BtVs or Angel. Seeing it that way, one can be left with the feeling of an unbought pilot. Secondly, the monster special effects, the route to hell and such are rather cheap. On the other hand, if one can accept that images and projections from hell would be difficult for a normal human mind to accept, would not be like a multi million dollar Hollywood production, then they are "acceptable".

But unlike most horror movies which are only good for one pass because afterwards, the shock is gone, this is good for a few watchings. It's a horror movie that doesn't depend on shock or scare to work, but rather a decent story to tell, to get across.

It has all the right elements. The underdog good guy, his watching elder, the best friend, the love of his life, a fairly psychotic enemy, the heartbreak, the salvation, the ace in the hole.

It's worth a look.