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Dr Lupesky's (Pierre DeVeaux) research is nothing more than
groundbreaking, he's on the verge of developing a drug to separate the
sould from the body and let it take over someone else's mind.
Unfortunately, developing this drug is a process of trial and error, and
the error part of it has cost several (unwilling) test subjects their
lives, which is why Dr Simpson (Ginny Dunlevy), head of the local college,
has to fire him, and to avoid controversy, Lupesky leaves for Europe to do
some research. A few months later, a series of weird disappearances of
young women is shattering the area, and Kim Castle (Jamie Kinser), small
fry reporter for a local newspaper, decides to investigate - and is
somewhat shocked that Dr Lupesky has moved back to the neighbourhood
again. But then again she figures it might make a good story to involve
him with said disappearances. However, while she thinks she has grown wise
on Lubesky he has in fact grown wise on her, as it's of course him and his
assistants (Bob Cederberg, Louise Millmann) who have kidnapped all these
young women and killed them in his experiments. And Kim is a young woman
as well, so a perfect guinea pig ... Even if The Soultangler
was actually shot on 16mm, it was edited on video, which gives it that
genuine shot-on-video look so characteristic to micro budget horror from
the mid to late 80s - and everything else falls into place as well: The
story is extremely far-fetched, doesn't always click, but is wild enough
to keep one entertained, the direction's functional mostly but manage to
focus on the macabre and gore, and the gore scenes might not be much more
advanced than in early Herschell Gordon Lewis movies, but they're explicit
enough to truly shock. And all of this is giving the film a cheap and
trashy feel that might be nothing for mainstream crowds, but the
connoisseur will truly enjoy it no doubt.
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