Soul Searcher

More distinguished film critics than myself have determined that you should judge a film in terms of what it sets out to achieve. Director Neil Oseman set out to make a SFX laden action/adventure picture on a budget of around £20,000. You can't get a half decent four door saloon for that. So in my opinion the films existence should be applauded alone. But there's a lot of other good stuff going on. Above all else the film has a strong and consistent visual style which is complemented by some surprisingly good Harryhausen influenced special effects.

Obviously there are issues, but there are always going to be with a twenty grand extravaganza. They are mainly down to narrative issues, overall the story works very well, young man is trained to be grim reaper whilst falling in love and trying stop a madman for opening up the moat of souls. The problems lie with tiny things like ezekial just up and leaving before the big battle.

At the end of the day, if you read the directors journal, Neil Oseman Had to do EVERYTHING, co-write the script, and produce. All this on the tiniest of budgets with no help from the BFI or Screen West Midlands who are probably at this moment handing out cash for another gritty urban drama about something controversial. or a cockernee gangster film. Nobody makes this kind of film in this country anymore.

In the end, Soulsearcher is a great, entertaining movie that harks back to the likes of Back to the Future and Ghostbusters. If you can't see past the flaws to see whats been achieved then clearly low budget movies aren't for you.