In Chillers original movie Dead Souls, airing on Friday, October 12th, the aforementioned home is the Conroy farm. In the prologue the family patriarch kills his family one at a time, starting with his wife while declaring that its time for the final step. He then proceeds to murder his two older children in highly disturbing fashion, slitting his daughters throat and hitting his son over the head with a blunt instrument.
That leaves only the newborn Brian, who has been safely hidden by his older brother. Unable to complete the task, Benjamin Conroy (J.H. Torrance Downes) nails his dead family and himself to crosses in the barn. Why he did all of this isnt entirely clear.
Cut to 17 years later. Brian Conroy is now John Petrie (Jesse James). John attends a private school and lives with his incredibly strict mother. She is not going to let him go to college due to the fact that they are nothing but state-sanctioned homosexual bathhouses. John doesnt know what he is going to do with life if he cant go to college.
Good (eventually bad) news! He has inherited an estate. A letter from an attorney arrives informing him that he is the new owner of 125 acres of land in addition to a house and barn. The attorney plans on selling it and keeping a healthy percentage for himself, and all John has to do is show up, sign some papers, and head back home. His mother, who would never let him go, is conveniently locked up and undergoing a psych evaluation, leaving John free to hop on a train and visit his estate.
Things go from bad to worse in a hurry. First a trio of locals tells John he isnt welcome in town. Then the attorney informs him that he isnt John Petrie but rather Brian Conroy, and his family is dead (his mother, who adopted him, is really his moms sister). Finally, there is the house itself. Its a strange and freaky place. Doors seem to open on their own. There are frequent unexplained noises. And someone appears to be lurking around the property.
Sadly, none of this is very interesting or out-of-the-ordinary. For a significant chunk of the first hour, John wanders around the house and the property. Nothing much happens and its rather dull. It doesnt help that James is very bland and delivers a lackluster performance. Theres also not much question as to what happened in the beginning. When the truth is revealed, its meant to be startling but it feels like something youve seen a hundred times before.
A handful of scenes are effectively unsettling, but there is an over-reliance on boo scares and attempts to manufacture scares by showing abrupt glimpses of something in corners or off in the distance. In small doses it can work, but it occurs way too frequently.
With clunky dialogue, uneven performances (Bill Moseley shows up late and seems bored out of his mind), and an overly familiar story, Dead Souls is a pedestrian tale that ultimately isnt worth making time for.
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