SOUL SURVIVORS

Young Cassandra, after barely escaping a terrifying car accident, plunges into a nightmare filled with visions and eerie presences. Pursued by a strange individual wearing a mask, surrounded by ambiguous and unreliable friends, the girl will try to face her nightmares alone, ultimately discovering a truth and a world different from what she believed. From the producers of "So What Did You Do?" and "Urban Legend" comes the new film by Stephen Carpenter, a genre director who, despite the surname, has no relation to the far more famous John Carpenter. This is a classic teen horror film, with a cast of young and talented actors, among whom Melissa Sagemiller stands out for her acting ability and intensity. The story follows the ghost-story trend, which has become popular again in recent years thanks to major successes like "The Sixth Sense" and "The Others," complete with the "usual" final twist that has become almost "inevitable" in recent horror productions, to the point of being expected and predictable. Stephen Carpenter's direction is, from a technical standpoint, flawless and meticulous, and, as mentioned, the actors are quite convincing; what is missing in this film, and unfortunately it's not insignificant, is the suspense, the tension: the story is quite engaging and fluid, but apart from a few classic "jump out of your seat" sequences, the movie never delivers a real scare, and in the end, it leaves the "horror enthusiast" unsatisfied. A decent and enjoyable film but nothing more, which turns out to be less successful than the latest productions on the same subject. A bit of a disappointment...