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Satan takes a walk on the mild side
Evil on film has never been as innocuous and downright confusing as it is in Lost Souls. Forget what The Exorcist led you to expect of devilish doings: Here, your head is the one that will be spinning.
By STEVE PERSALL
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 12, 2000
[Photo: New Line Cinema]
Winona Ryder, as a woman who has survived an exorcism, and John Hurt, a kindly exorcist for whom she works, team up in a well-meaning attack on a pretty disorganized evil in Lost Souls.
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Demonic possession isn't what it used to be. The current successful reissue of The Exorcist makes Lost Souls stale by comparison.
Everything that made William Friedkin's 1973 film so powerful is junked by Janusz Kaminski's directing debut, after an award-winning career collaborating with Steven Spielberg as a cinematographer.
Instead of a compact battle between God and Satan with four human pawns, Lost Souls spreads its dull theology over too many characters and twists to matter. Possessed people don't endure gruesome transformations, they just yell and thrash a bit. Exorcism looks easy, performed three times here with minimal prayer and collateral damage.
Lost Souls could use a steaming helping of pea soup.
Or at least some crackers for Winona Ryder, looking more haggard than usual as Maya Larkin, former possession victim. Maya teaches French at a parochial school and serves as "secular assistant" for a kindly old exorcist (John Hurt). Her occult experience compels her to get to the bottom of this whole good vs. evil thing.
Maya decodes one demon's numeric ramblings and comes up with the name Peter Kelson (Ben Chaplin), an author specializing in mass murder cases. Peter is what biblical horror films refer to as the One, but just exactly which One is a minor mystery. Is he pro- or Anti-Christ? An hour of mumbo-jumbo passes before viewers learn which.
What kind of mumbo-jumbo? Well, there's Maya hallucinating about overflowing toilets, cracking plaster and a blasphemous child. The same Catholic church that apparently approves exorcisms with ease dismisses her claims that Satan exists. Peter explains his disbelief in pure evil on talk shows and at dinner with his very Catholic family. Kaminski tries to fill the gaps in logic with slate-gray cityscapes and alluring violins.
The scariest thing about Lost Souls is watching so many fine actors slumming. Chaplin doesn't count since everything about him is monotonous and barely registers. Ryder spends all but one scene looking shell-shocked. Hurt gets to sleep off most of the movie after a nasty exorcism that sets off only a water sprinkler.
Philip Baker Hall (Magnolia, The Contender), the best dour face in films today, has little to do as Peter's priest-uncle. Then, the material he's saddled with in the last 10 minutes is embarrassing. Elias Koteas (Crash, Fallen) follows his pensive nut routine to one of the film's few violent ends. Everyone seems distracted by wondering if their checks will clear the bank.
Kaminski's film contains some of the striking images his reputation promises and a couple of good sound-effect shocks. Nothing as haunting or cerebral as any single reel of The Exorcist. And no pea soup for you.
Lost Souls
- Grade: D
- Director: Janusz Kaminski
- Cast: Winona Ryder, Ben Chaplin, John Hurt, Philip Baker Hall, Elias Koteas
- Screenplay: Pierce Gardner
- Rating: R; violence, profanity
- Running time: 100 min.
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