The Soul Eater is screening as part of the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from July 18 to August 4.

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In the rural town of Roquenoir, France, a series of murders and kidnappings have taken place. One survivor, a young boy, says it is the work of the “Soul Eater,” a creature of urban legend that steals children away into the woods.

Two investigators working under different jurisdictions are tasked with investigating the case. Elisabeth (Virginie Ledoyen) works for the National Police and is focused on the murders. Franck (Paul Hamy), the captain of the National Gendarmerie, is focused on the missing children. The two butt heads as they seek answers about this mysterious series of crimes.

Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, best known for their bloody 2007 film Inside, bring glimpses of the gruesome to this otherwise bland police procedural. The process of uncovering clues and getting closer to the connection between the crime and the Soul Eater is slow going and lacks intensity. The two characters almost seem bored going through the motions themselves, and the humdrum events translate to the audience as such.

Despite an absence in tension, the two leads have moments of chemistry that work. The character work is not particularly deep at the script level, but Ledoyen and Hamy bring some pathos to the roles. A scene of them discussing their personal lives as they relate to the case is standout.

The film makes some good use of this pathos in its climax, but it is mostly interested in getting twist happy with a series of big reveals meant to put the puzzle pieces of the mystery into place. One of these reveals is under-explained. Another doesn’t quite make sense based on what has come before in the plot – if you squint a little, it might make sense, but in a way that is ultimately inconsequential to the story. The third is just kind of odd in a way that doesn’t match the tone of the rest of the film. It is meant to come off as dark, but it is instead strange in a borderline humorous way.

I have not engaged with much of Maury and Bustillo’s work. Having now seen The Soul Eater, their underwater haunted house picture The Deep House, and their version of Texas Chainsaw lore in Leatherface, I am tempted to return to Inside. Given how little I enjoyed of those other titles, I am curious if their influential first film holds up to contemporary horror standards (that film came out during a particular trend of extreme content in French horror). In any case, The Soul Eater is not nearly as bad as The Deep House or Leatherface, but it also doesn’t impress as a mostly run-of-the-mill crime film.

The Soul Eater: C-

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As always, thanks for reading!

—Alex Brannan (Letterboxd, Facebook)