Movie Review: 4 Dead Girls (aka 4 Dead Girls: Soul Taker, 2012)

Directed by  Mike Campbell and Todd Johnson

Movie Review by  Greg Goodsell

Hi everyone! It has been brought to my attention that horror film fandom is definitely missing a feminine voice, what with Lianne Spiderbaby and Michelle Clifford in hiding – and for very good reasons – and to this end, I have offered my good friend BAMBI HERSHBERGER to review the new, female-oriented horror film 4 DEAD GIRLS, aka 4 DEAD GIRLS: SOUL TAKER. Take it away, Bambi!

Okay, so like there are these four girls, these four college students, they luck into buying this really cool three-bedroom house for cheap off campus. They are: insufferable goody two-shoes Lily (Katherine Browning), her sleep-around friend Bianca (Tiffany S. Walker), Lily's lesbian sister Lori (Ashley Love) and Lori's lesbian lover Pam (Leah Verrill). It's a really cute house – they have a candelabra from Bed, Bath & Beyond that costs a cool $59.99 in the living room – and they move in. Oh, yeah, there's this guy (Mike Campbell) who is the landlord, a real, creepy guy who probably hangs out at parks and pays little boys to pull their pants down –  yeah, he's that creepy, who is this “Soul Taker,” a Naluso Chito – who really is a figure in Choctaw mythology, I looked it up on Google so it must be true – who has lured girls to the house before and has taken their souls. He wears this Grim Reaper outfit that you can get at Partytime! Stores with the skull cut out that you can get for $40. He says stuff, “I must have your soul,” and stuff like that and then he sucks them out of the poor girls with video effects.



So the gals move in, and the first thing you know, they start bitching at each other. Lily is a religious pain-in-the-ass who gives Bianca a hard time for having sex with men and gives her sister Lori a hard time for having sex with women. What do you expect, Lily? The rest of the world will conform to your expectations and not have sex? Hey, I don't sleep around with every guy I see, but  come on! It's really just as well as Lori and Pam make “hot lesbian love” with their tops on! Come on, people! I don't know a lot about THAT world but I KNOW that stuff doesn't happen in real life! So anyway. They're all bitching at each other about how Bianca sleeps around with men older than she – but hey, what's the point? The actress who plays Bianca is well over 40, hanging out with girls just out of high school – she can do with her life as she wishes! And Lily is down on Lori for leading a lesbian lifestyle and how their parents wouldn't approve – part of growing up is making your own decisions, Lily! What's going to happen? Mom and dad are going to cut you off of their Christmas card list? Well, anyway, the Soul Taker guy comes and strangles Bianca after her latest college professor conquest. NO ONE NOTICES. The walls are paper thin and the gals don't hear Bianca getting STRANGLED in the next room. The next day they notice Bianca didn't go to school. Her bedroom door has remained slammed shut since the night before and no one noticed. What are these girls studying in college? ROCKET SCIENCE? Well, they open the door and Bianca is DEAD. Pam, the only funny one says “She looks really dead!” HA!

Well they all scream and go OH MY GOD and try to leave the house but all the doors are  locked and somebody slams shutters over the windows, plunging them into darkness. I guess this means they're trapped in another dimension now. Pam says “I'm hungry, let's eat before all the food in the fridge goes bad.” A few minutes later, Lily says, “Why don't we knock out some of the windows?' Pam gets all huffy and says “What with?” Pam are you the STUPID ONE, NOW? DUH! What about the candelabra in the living room? Well, they try to break out a window with a chair and the chair breaks into pieces! Oh, we're done for! And so the Soul Taker person comes and says YOU ALL MUST DIE! Aaaaah! People get stuck with knives and then pull them out slowly and the Soul Taker chases Lily around the house but since it's not that big a house, it gets really really boring. I mean, the hallway is only three feet wide and what fun is it being chased down a hallway that's only a few feet long …..

You want me to spoil it for you?

Seriously, do want me to spoil it for you?

Lily is the only one left alive because she's innocent and the Soul Taker guy wants her to become his real estate agent and lure more stupid college girls to the house. She goes NO NO NO and he chases her around the teeny tiny hose and hallway and she says YOU WIN! I'LL DO IT! And the film ends with her showing the house to another stupid college coed with the Soul Taker guy smirking in the background. The end.

Oh, the film was also known as THE RENTAL while it was in production.