Lost Souls - lost souls

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Movie
German title Lost Souls - lost souls
Original title Lost Souls
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2000
length 98 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Janusz Kamiński
script Pierce Gardner
production Meg Ryan
Nina R. Sadowsky
music Jan AP Kaczmarek
camera Mauro Fiore
cut Anne Goursaud
Andrew Mondshein
occupation

Lost Souls is a US-produced horror film released in 2000.

action

"... a man born of fornication will become Satan and the world will no longer be as we knew it."

- Deuteronomy , Book 17

Maya Larkin, a teacher, is a devout Catholic. In her youth she herself was the target of an exorcism ; today she accompanies Father Lareaux, Father Jeremy and Deacon John Townsend to a psychiatric clinic to exorcise Henry Birdson, who has been scribbling mysterious series of numbers since he had temporal lobe epilepsy . Although this is not very successful, Henry falls into a coma a short time later and Father Lareaux is also severely weakened by the procedure, but Maya succeeds in taking Henry's notes and smuggling them out of the clinic. Using polyalphabetic substitution , she can replace the numbers with letters and thus receives the name Peter Kelson.

By chance she learns from television that Peter Kelson is a writer who researches serial killers and deals with pathological narcissism and parapsychology . On the anniversary of the death of his parents, who were murdered and committed suicide, Peter meets with his family. Over lunch he tells them that a dream from his youth has caught up with him for a few days in which he is reading a book with the characters "XES" on the cover. His family smiles at him and believes that youthful sex cravings are catching up with him. Only later does one of the clergy discover that it is the Greek number “ χ ε ζ ”, which in its value 22 + 5 + 6 indicates that the incarnation of the devil will meet a man in the minute of his 33rd birthday.

Maya realizes that Kelson is the personification of the devil. To convince Peter and also to persuade him to exorcism, she asks him to look for a pentagram under his bed and at the same time hands him the tape on which Henry's exorcism was recorded. Peter plays the tape in his apartment, but can't hear anything but white noise . In the neighboring apartment, however, Henry's screams are clearly audible, whereupon the resident hangs herself with tights at night.

When Peter tells his friend Claire about the pentagram he discovered hidden in the false ceiling of the apartment below her apartment, the situation escalates and Claire threatens to shoot Maya, who, in her opinion, has Peter under her spell. In a scuffle between the two women, a shot is fired that fatally hits Claire.

In order to carry out the exorcism on Peter, the latter goes to Father Lareaux, accompanied by Maya. The clergyman, however, is already permeated by evil, so that an exorcism is carried out on him instead, in the course of which Lareaux dies. With his last breath he sends Peter and Maya to see Peter's uncle, Father James. He is celebrating a mass in a church and most of Peter's family is present. Peter shoots both his uncle and two other members of his family before taking off with Maya in his car.

He stopped the car on a blocked bridge and handed the weapon to his passenger, Maya, knowing full well that he was only a few minutes away from his 33rd birthday. At the moment when the digital display of the car clock changes from 4:55 a.m. to 6:66 a.m., Peter is shot by Maya.

Reviews

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times states that the thriller is "flat".

In the lexicon of international films one can read that the film is “a psychologically disguised horror film that largely dispenses with special effects. Because of his overly illogical action, he clearly lags behind the classics of the genre. "

Thomas Schlömer from filmspiegel.de sees the film as “a prime example of lack of tension and directing incompetence”.

background

The film was shot in Los Angeles and New York City on a budget of $ 28 million. In the US cinemas he grossed 16.8 million US dollars , worldwide he had revenues of around 33.4 million US dollars.

It was supposed to start in cinemas as early as 1999; due to the high number of films with a similar theme, its US theatrical release was postponed to October 13, 2000, while it was shown for the first time in Germany on January 18, 2001.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chicago Sun-Times , Roger Ebert
  2. ↑ Lost Souls. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. ^ Film review, filmspiegel.de, Thomas Schlömer
  4. ↑ Locations according to the Internet Movie Database
  5. ↑ a b Box office results according to the Internet Movie Database
  6. ↑ Start dates according to the Internet Movie Database