The Soul Eater 4K 2024 Ultra HD 2160p

Legends come to life in the darkest of times.The Soul Eater was a local tale, but when children began disappearing in this quiet village, the demon was once again talked about.Two detectives investigating the case don't believe in the beyond, but soon they must face the horrifying truth: the Soul Eater is real.

User Review
In the fictional town of Rocnoir in northeastern France, five children have gone missing in six months. Police Major Elizabeth (Virginie Ledoyen) and Gendarmerie Captain Franck (Paul Ami) arrive independently of each other at the scene of a new tragedy in the same locality. The Wasser couple (Jeremy Margale and Audrey Golay) have been found murdered in their own home. The perpetrator stabbed each of the victims about 80 times. In the basement, Elizabeth finds the Vassers' terrified son Evan (Cameron Bain). The boy says it's all the fault of the Soul Eater from the local bogeyman. Frank is convinced that the Vassers' deaths are connected to the children's disappearance.

The French thriller is based on the novel “Soul Eater” by Alexis Laipsker, published in 2021. The premiere of the film took place at the festival in Rotterdam in early 2024. Directors of the film - Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury - famous for debut bloody horror with Beatrice Dahl “Revenge of the Unborn”, one of the brightest representatives of the new French extreme. The writing duo have been successfully filming both in their homeland and in the States for nearly two decades. In 2017, Bustillo and Mori entrusted the picture “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Leatherface” - a prequel to the original film by Tobe Hooper.

“Sinister. Soul Eater” is a step up for the producers from France. Scary and bloody episodes in the movie are enough, and the directors are in the habit of stopping the camera on the corpses, but still Bustillo and Mori shoot a thriller. Perhaps the closest analogs are “Crimson Rivers” and Scandinavian noirs, from “The Killing” and “TheBridge” to “Silence of the Angels” and the “Mysterium” franchise.

Although the inhabitants of Rocknoir blame the crimes of the Eater of Souls - a horned creature that lives in the forest and takes away people's inner light - neither Frank nor Elizabeth in mysticism do not believe in mysticism. Once a large sanatorium in the French countryside, it is now a decaying place with no prospects. For a child-stealing maniac, the location is perfect. The town is hidden in the mountains and forests, and low-skilled police only complain about the visiting specialists, but they themselves are unable to catch the dangerous criminal.

It is not hard to guess that the movie has a literary source material - the density of shocking events is so high that the audience has no time to take a break and comprehend what is happening on the screen. If the TV series usually finds one corpse per episode, then in the French film the killer strikes again every 15 minutes. Things don't end with the Vassers.

Gradually we learn Elizabeth's past, while the inquisitive Frank remains a mystery. Although their superiors ask the investigators to wrap up quickly and not to build theories that would link the missing children and other crimes in Rocknoir, the detectives are not ready to retreat and feel that they have discovered a small branch of hell among the mountains. Intended viewers are not surprised by the secrets in the closet of the inhabitants of quiet places for a long time. Abandoned sanatorium, cellars of respectable houses, sawmill, gloomy thicket, river valley - the producers skillfully cast eeriness with disturbing music, and evil can lurk around any corner. Hardly a Soul Eater, but definitely devils in human skin.

The French movie looks in one breath, but runs the risk of fading from memory pretty quickly. This is a worthy genre exercise that will delight fans of tickling nerves, but Mori and Bustillo rush to the finale at breakneck speed, so it's hard to have time to sympathize with the main characters. In “The Bridge” or “The Killing” over several seasons, viewers have had time to fall in love with Saga Norén and Sarah Lund, and the producers, who started with the new French extreme, want to shock rather than try to analyze the actions of the villains or reveal the identities of the investigators. The decaying place equates to a breeding ground for maniacs, or at least deeply frustrated people. Bustillo and Mori don't revolutionize the thriller genre, but they certainly don't disappoint with plot surprises or an ending.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (78.2 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Info Audio

#English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
#French: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
#German: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

Info Subtitles

English, French, German.