Review: The Soultangler (1987)

Directed by: Pat Bishow
Starring: Pierre Devaux, Jane Kinser
Written by: John Bishow, Lance Laurie, Pat Bishow
Music by: Chris Xefos, Hypnolovewheel
Country: United States
Available on: DVD (AGFA/Bleeding Skull)
IMDb

Bleeding Skull, who released this "shot on 16 mm, edited on video” indie horror on DVD in conjunction with the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA), describes The Soultangler thusly, “If Re-Animator was shot on Long Island for the price of a used car, The Soultangler would be the result.” I couldn’t have put it any better. Herein, Dr. Anton Lupesky has developed a drug that allows him to inhabit and reanimate corpses — provided their eyes are still intact (for science reasons). The movie definitely has a lot in common with Stuart Gordon’s adaptation of Re-Animator, but director Pat Bishow insists similarities are coincidental since both films were in production around the same time. But regardless, The Soultangler is its own unique insanity, like Re-Animator’s more serious, grotesquely more drug-addled cousin. This DIY dynamo is of course not “good” by objective standards, but it nails that surreal atmosphere that only an incoherent script, unnatural acting borne of absolutely no experience whatsoever, haphazard direction, outrageous gore, and the drones of a cheap Casio can muster. Whether through intention or accident, the film really hones in on a particular wavelength that pushed my buttons in the worst/best way, straddling that line between masterpiece and madness that sometimes isn’t visible at all. The Soultangler starts off slowly, all brutal and aimless banality, lulling your brain into a miasma wherein rationale is no longer appropriate, before assaulting you with surprisingly unsettling setpieces and some really fantastic gore gags. The finale rolls out two or three of the best, most creative gobs of viscera I’ve ever seen. There are two cuts of The Soultangler: the originally released 90-minute cut padded to meet distributor demands, and a 62-minute director’s cut that ditches a lot of the fat. But, as they say, the fat is where you find all the flavor. I actually prefer the longer cut’s disorienting, often achronological editing; desperately long shots of mundanity overlain by the atonal whir of a keyboard or absurdly melodramatic voiceover; and scenes of peripheral characters doing shit absolutely meaningless to the story. It all adds spice to the this robust stew of lunacy. This is the type of movie I feel halfway deranged rating so highly, but it’s a strange concoction that really affected me, despite my body and mind’s best defenses.

Overall rating: 8.5 out of 10