Why so much hype?

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

My Soul to Take (2010): Dir: Wes Craven / Cast: Max Thieroit, John Magaro, Denzel Whitaker, Zena Grey, Nick Lashaway: They should have called it My Cash to Take for all it is worth. Title regards a plunge into evil without care or any willingness of prevention. We are introduced to a bunch of faceless teenage idiots whose prime importance in this film is to die in horrible graphic methods. Apparently these brats all turn sixteen but it is also the anniversary of the Ripper slayings. According to these nitwits the soul of the Ripper inhabits many victims and they commit grisly acts such as murder or watching a movie this bad. They are killed off one by one but all faithfully believe that the Ripper dwells under a bridge. Wes Craven is a veteran in horror films. He created the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, which is perhaps still his best and most creative work. Here he does his best with laughable writing. Max Thieriot plays the obvious young hero who will experience visions that don't include a way off the set. John Magaro plays his much bullied and extremely wayward best friend. Denzel Whitaker is a joke as a blind kid who just happens to appear at a crime scene at just the right time and he too dies. Zena Grey plays the stereotypical religious freak who warns everyone of their evil behavior before she is found with her throat slashed. Everyone here serves one purpose and that is make dumb ass decisions that result in their ultimate doom. The special effects are about the only element that seems ambitious, otherwise this film is free to take to any roadside dumpster. Score: 3 / 10

Abel Plenkov (Raul Esparza) suffers from mental illness and he turns into the serial killer Riverton Ripper who kills with his blade engraved with vengeance. He attacks his family and causes the ambulance to crash. He's assumed to be dead. Exactly 16 years later, the local teens have gathered. Local legend dictates that the Ripper could rise on the anniversary and one of the seven kids born on that day have to drive Ripper back into the river. The seven are blind Jerome (Denzel Whitaker), smart-mouthed Alex Dunkelman (John Magaro), Jay (Jeremy Chu), timid Bug (Max Thieriot), religious Penelope (Zena Grey) who predicts the coming evil, Brittany (Paulina Olszynski) whom Bug has a crush on, and brute jock Brandon (Nick Lashaway). Some believe that the Ripper is still alive and then the killings start. Fang (Emily Meade) is mean girls queen bee and turns out to be something more for Bug.The story telling is too scattered especially in the first half. Bug is the lead and he needs to be in 90% of the movie. All the kids are annoying in some way. The horror story is lifeless. The villain isn't fearsome. The kills aren't gruesome enough. Nothing really stands out. The Fang reveal is pretty good but I never got invested in the characters. Their survival and even their deaths aren't compelling to me.

It was a pretty interesting idea, but some core aspects about a horror film were done very poorly in this one, particularly pacing. it felt too fast and when you watch the film you'll see what I mean. There is minimal exposition (which is key to building character development and the characters are 1 dimensional. It was sufficiently gory and had a freaky villain but the twist at the end didn't really match the person of the killer. The film has some great atmosphere too used jumpscares quite a bit.It could have been so much more but it would have had to fix all these issues, particularly pacing and characters

I avoided this movie when it came to theaters, and decided to watch it tonight. I've heard it was bad, but I decided to check it out anyway since I still have respect for Wes Craven as filmmaker. In fact, I think his directing skills are very good, it's just that he either works with horrible script or tries too much to please the audiences. and "My Soul to Take" is no exception. It's probably the worst Craven movie to this day. Plot is basically the same as Elm Street 2, and that's interesting - Wes Craven borrowing heavily from a sequel to one of his movies, but MSTT suffers from trying to hard to be too smart and complex, instead of being a simple straight-forward slasher film. Characters are horrible, non of them are likable. They are either over- the-top stereotypes, or just boring. I really have no problem with stereotypical characters if they are interesting and done in witty way (several movies did that), but characters in MSTT had some of the worst mindblowing bad dialogues. You can do a really good drinking game, taking one shot each time one of the characters said dumber line then his preview one, or something stupid happens in the movie. This is what happens when man in his 60 tries to write a movie about teens in their 16. Also, there's a huge problem where one of the scenes does the whole exposition for the entire movie and what's going on. It felt too forced and exposition didn't came naturally. The villain is not very interesting, nor is he very intimidating like Craven's preview villains (Gang from HHE, Freddy or even Ghostface). You remember Coolio? Now imagine that Coolio is a movie character, made on Youtube movie quality with his face painted in white. There you have, Wes Craven's Ripper. His one liners are ridiculous (aren't those outdated anyway???) and he is arguably one of the dumbest slashers in history of slasher movies. Now, movie tries to be cute sometimes, but that's another thing.On the positive side: It's actually well directed. Craven still knows how to lead the story with his visuals and lure into false sense of security. It had one or two moments, but good direction didn't help to save horrible screenplay. There are few jump scares but they aren't overused and they never become annoyance (they also don't explode with loud musical orchestra in the background). Also, this movie has similar frames to the Craven's '80s movies, which I found rather interesting. Cinematography is still modern, but camera angles and composition looks like a movie made in late '80s-early-mid '90s. There's also "The Curse of the Wes Craven" moment here, which plagues this director from the beginning of his career - he doesn't know how to end movie properly.Soundtrack is forgettable.Note: There's only one funny scene where two lead characters do presentation of California Condor at their class. It's unnecessary scene and doesn't advance the plot in any way, but it's kinda funny and weird. It also feels like a random scene that's taken from some other movie and edited by mistake, which makes it even funnier. Overall, it's bad, it's pretty bad, probably one of the Craven's worst. Even worse then Scream 4, and that says a lot.