Too much of everything

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Better Late Then Never

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

The one bit of SOUL SEARCHER trivia that no viewer can avoid is that it was produced for 28,000 pounds – the modern-day equivalent of about $53,000. While this shows that first-time director Neil Oseman is an extremely frugal filmmaker who can pull off a fully-fledged action-fantasy with the minimum of resources, I am sorry to say that it does not make for a very good movie. To me, SOUL SEARCHER is among the worst kinds of films – a chore to watch. There are some good things to it, but overall, this just isn't very fun.The story: An unsuspecting young man (Ray Bullock, Jr.) is recruited by the Grim Reaper (Jonny Lewis) to take over his position and stop the plan of a supernatural entity (Aj Nicole) to merge earth and hell.The primary occupation of director Oseman is cinematography, and as a result, the movie looks good at a glance – not at all like the jerky indie crud you usually associate with this kind of budget, despite the amplitude of hand-held camera-work. There are also some traditional effects used to create various supernatural imagery, and I appreciate the 80s throwback. However, beyond this, the movie is in bad shape. The editing could be a lot better and a lot of the computer-generated effects are not integrated particularly well. The relentless nighttime setting is depressing. Worst of all is the lack of interesting characters. Absolutely none of the people inhabiting this picture are either likable or intriguing enough to merit investment in the storyline, and as a result, a handful of cool plot devices (e.g. the umbilical cord concept of ghosts) are wasted.Inexplicably, this is also a martial arts movie. The making-of feature goes on about how the filmmakers strived to add a Hong Kong flavor to the fights and how the Hong Kong style is superior to the western style, but these notions are meaningless because, for the most part, these fights suck. The eastern influence is indeed there in the kung fu choreography and the marginally longer shots, but the combatants are almost universally slow and often look very uncomfortable swinging swords and scythes at each other. Their poor pacing and the lack of sound effects do not help, to the point that I only give one of the seven brawls (the final showdown) a passing grade.I really wanted to like this movie, but too many cinematic shortcomings converged to make this anything more than an exercise in viewer patience. The 98-minute runtime absolutely dragged, and the best part of this experience has been writing this review. Nick Oseman demonstrated that a lot can be done with relatively little money and a lot of determination, and I would be happy to see him helm a bigger-budgeted feature, but this passion project of his is not nearly as good as I had hoped it would be.

I only recently saw this film and was moved, as a film-maker myself to post a comment here on its' merits. Apparently made over three years on a budget of £26,000 the result is an outstanding example of sheer effort against all the odds. The technical results need no apology from anyone. The sheer guts and bravado of its' makers, all of them, most of all the Director Neil Oseman, (watch "The Making Of" on the DVD), deserve all the kudos they have coming to them. Notable also is score composer Scott Benzie's wonderfully realised, talented, and integrated orchestral music. You'll learn also that Mr Benzie conducted the 56 piece orchestra and recorded all the music cues in one day. I wonder also if Ray Harryhausen has seen this film. Impressed he would be of the efforts here. Ray him self was no stranger to "hand-made" film-making at the outset of his career and for his first two or three features certainly. This team deserve as real crack with a realistic budget, but, once they have recovered from the sheer bloody hard work of making this, I have no doubt Mr Oseman will do another movie. Finally, with all this "qualification", does it work as a movie. Yes, it does. Hats off, guys. Well done from me. Anyone out there who thinks they can make a better movie, in the round, than this, on the same budget and resources...have a go. You're in for a shock that will change your life. I remember reading the comment of another film-maker who had made a much less ambitious movie than this on roughly the same resources. He said, "I got it finished, but I have'nt been the same person since".

If it was not for the visual effect I would have voted 10 instead of 8, I loved the story and the actors did very well, I predict a great future for Oseman, I'm pretty darn sure this guy will become one of the best directors out there..the Acting was good, the story was good , the few things I didn't like about this movie, was the fighting choreography, and the special effect but what can you expect with a 30.000$ budget..I'm all a very pleasurable movie, worth watching.. if you can look away from the fight scenes and the special effect.. this movie is a winner..I wish I could afford to give Oseman a 3.000.000$ budget instead and ask for a remake..as long as he used the same actors

Just rented this, another low budget British action martial arts… yawn. There are so many of these out there now that to be honest I'm starting to get bored. In the past two years a rash of badly acted and poorly shot British and even US low budget actioners have been released.Working as I do for a cross Atlantic review site I get screeners of these and being that my speciality is action (and that I'm British) I get the dubious pleasure of reviewing an ever growing stack of DV features.Soul Searcher is okay, a solid 2 ½ star movie. It's not badly acted, or badly directed, or badly shot but at the same time there was little to stand out. The central lead was dull and lacked life, and the film just felt like it needed something more to make it stand out.As for the extras, it's an impressive pack to be sure but for my money the director should have been stopped from making his rather self involved behind the scenes documentary. If I hear how hard is was once more I will scream.