Crew
Directors – Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury, Screenplay – Annelyse Batrel & Ludovic Lefebvre, Based on the Novel Le Mangeur d’Ames (The Soul Eater) (2021) by Alexis Laipsker, Producers – Pierre-Marcel Blanchot, Fabrice Lambot, David Layani & Leo Maidenberg, Photography – Simon Roca, Music – Raphael Gesqua, Visual Effects – UFX Studios (Supervisor – Julian Van De Velde), Special Effects – Hikam Bouzekraoui, Armiel Cessa, Sara Helminger, Jerome Miel & Castille Plichet, Makeup Effects – CLSFX Atelier 69 (Supervisor – Olivier Alonso) & Marison De (Pierre Parry & Wilfried Pirrin), Production Design – Marc Thiebault. Production Company – Phase IV Productions/Place du Marche Productions/UMedia/Star Invest Films Production.
Cast
Paul Hamy (Captain Franck De Roland), Virginie Ledoyen (Commander Elizabeth Guardino), Sandrine Bonnaire (Dr Carole Marbas), Francis Renaud (Brigadier-Chief Marcelin), Malik Zidi (Fabrice Gonnet), Elizabeth Duda (Pascale Minot), Cameron Bain (Evan Vasseur), Lya Lessert (Jeanne Maublanc), Chloe Coullard (Valentine Schwarz), Christophe Favre (Henri Maublanc), Stephane Dausse (The Priest)
Plot
Police captain Franck De Roland catches a ride with Elizabeth Guardino into the small town of Roquenoir. He has come to investigate a string of child disappearances in the area. He finds that Elizabeth is a police commander sent to investigate a bizarre murder in which a married couple have torn each apart. It does not take long for the two to realise that they are investigating a connected crime. A child is found having survived at the murder scene but only says that his parents were killed by The Soul Eater, a boogeyman of local legend.
The French directing team of Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury first appeared with Inside (2007), a brutal and harrowing film about a pregnant mother pursued by a mystery woman determined to tear the baby from her womb. This became the leading film in the movement that was labelled French Extremism. Bustillo and Maury subsequently went on to make the likes of Livide (2011) and Among the Living (2014), as well as the X is for Xylophone segment of ABCs of Death 2 (2014). They were brought to the US to make the Texas Chainsaw Massacre prequel Leatherface (2017) and then returned to France to make Kandisha (2020) and The Deep House (2021). With they adapt Le Mangeur d’Ames (The Soul Eater) (2021), a novel from crime writer Alexis Laipsker.
The title The Soul Eater makes you think that Bustillo and Maury are conducting another horror film – I kept doing a mental flip and thinking of the modest Catholic horror The Sin Eater (2003). In actuality, what we have is primarily a Police Procedural. However, it is also one where there are a good many elements that sit within or verge on the edge of genre territory – the titular Boogeyman; the small stick figures that create a Folk Horror vibe; a secretive cult conducting child murders; and a series of deaths where it is later explained is due to people being given an experimental narcotic that causes a form of Mass Insanity where they are driven to attack one another.
The Soul Eater works quite well as a policier. The plot is tightly wound and comes with a number of sharp surprises as the investigation uncovers things. The two characters –Virginie Ledoyen and the neanderthal looking Paul Hamy – are well paired as opposites and come together well with both giving not too bad performances, while the script eventually winds in aspects of either’s pasts that tie to the investigation.
The more substantial disappointment of The Soul Eater is that it stirs quite an imaginative plot – a folk boogeyman, child disappearances, madness inducing drugs – but ultimately comes down to only offering a mundane explanation for what is going on. [PLOT SPOILERS] This involves a secretive cult of locals who are engaged in some kind of child abuse – the script does not exactly make it clear what was going on. For some reason, the group see the need to abduct children and wear ritual animal masks and identities while doing so. All of which comes out far less interesting than the build-up.
Trailer here (English subbed)
Trailer here (better quality but English dubbed)