PLOT: A family crosses paths with a man who has been cursed to collect souls for a demon he carries around in a sack.
REVIEW: When I hear that a movie is called THE SOUL COLLECTOR (WATCH IT HERE), it immediately makes me wonder if it's going to be about a sub-par Freddy Krueger knockoff. Thankfully, that's not what director Harold Hölscher's feature directorial debut is – this wasn't an attempt to follow in the footsteps of any '80s slashers, this a slow burn, arthouse style horror movie, twisted and strange, and with a focus on character. As generic as the title THE SOUL COLLECTOR sounds, at least it's better than the title the film had when it first played at festivals. Back then it was simply called 8. No wonder it got a title change on its way to distribution.
The setting for THE SOUL COLLECTOR is South Africa in 1977, and while a lot of genre movies are filmed in South Africa for budgetary reasons, it's rare that one is set there because the filmmakers are interested in digging into the local culture. It was nice to find that the setting here was not incidental; Hölscher and co-writer Johannes Ferdinand Van Zyl built the story on African folklore and mythology. That makes this film feel fresh and unique.
At the center of the story is a young orphan named Mary (Keita Luna), who accompanies her uncle William (Garth Breytenbach) and his wife Sarah (Inge Beckmann) to the old, remote family farm that William has inherited. There they meet Lazarus (Tshamano Sebe), a homeless man who offers to help around the property. Lazarus seems to be a friendly guy, but Sarah distrusts him from the moment she meets him, and we know from the start that she's right to not want him around. That's because the sack Lazarus carries around contains a hideous little demon with a voracious appetite for souls.
Lazarus could have been presented as a heartless monster, as some of the locals believe him to be, but Sebe is able to make us care about his character and feel sympathy for him. When we find out exactly how Lazarus came to have this demon in his life, the back story is heart wrenching. We see the torment he feels about the things he has to do in service of this demon – and yet he does them, and his actions cannot be condoned.
Sebe isn't the only cast member who delivers a wonderful performance. All of the leads do quite well in their roles, with Luna proving to be a terrific child actress in this, her screen debut. She was given heavy material to work with, she's playing a child who ponders the afterlife after losing her parents, and while Mary doesn't have any intense breakdowns over the grief she feels, Luna brings a soulful quality to the character. Luna and Sebe have some great scenes to play together. Beckmann stands out as the concerned Sarah, who tries to be a good female figure in Mary's life while hurting over the fact that she can't conceive a child of her own. William is mainly there to ignore his wife's concerns, but Breytenbach makes the character feel real. Chris April and Luxolo Ndabedi have fascinating supporting roles as locals who know Lazarus is to blame for deaths in the area.
THE SOUL COLLECTOR is an exceptionally well made film, and cinematographer David Pienaar ensured that it looks great. There is a very melancholy feel to the entirety of its 99 minutes, with the score composed by Elben Schutte enhancing that feeling. It's a film that deals heavily with loss – the loss of Mary's parents, the loss of Lazarus's daughter long before, the deaths of the people whose souls Lazarus collects – and the sadness of it all is palpable.
With his first feature, Hölscher has made something that's impressive in both technical achievement and in how emotionally engaging it is. It will require some patience for some viewers to get through THE SOUL COLLECTOR, it doesn't move quickly and doesn't lay out all the answers in an easy way, but those who can go along with the pace, tone, and style of storytelling will find it to be a rewarding experience.
The element I had the biggest issue with was the inclusion of some cliché supernatural jump scare moments, but I suppose filmmakers feel that they're required to put that sort of thing into a movie like this.
Shout! Studios and Rock Salt Releasing will be giving THE SOUL COLLECTOR a Digital and On Demand release on June 12th. It can be found on Amazon at THIS LINK.