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A REAL Sci-Fi Original: Soulkeeper

© Elizabeth Burton

While the Sci-Fi Channel is one of the few that actually produces original science fiction films, the sad fact is most of them would be better dubbed UNoriginal. For the first few seasons, every one seemed to be a variation on a single theme: staff of isolated outpost are taken hostage by murderous psychopaths and must prevent them from reaching earth. The details differed, but not by much.

This year, however, the suits at Sci-Fi seem to be at least looking at different story lines, though whether the end result can actually be considered original still remains open to question. The first film of the new season, Mindforce was disappointing -- a pedestrian effort that was equal parts Dark Angel and X-Files.

The second offering was a farcical bit of fluff called Soulkeeper. Despite the feeling inspired by the various clips preceding the broadcast that we were looking at a kind of Wayne's Underworld, the film actually turned out to be reasonably entertaining.

In the prologue, a sextet of Bedouins enacts a ritual around a corpse lying on a stone altar. Lightning strikes the deceased, then spreads to the others, who when it stops fall to the ground with their eyes gouged out--the evil sorcerer-demon Simon Magus has returned to that land of the living.

Proceed to now, and a pair of losers, Terrence Christian (Kevin Patrick Walls) and Corey Mahoney (Rodney Rowland), who are working as "acquisitions specialists" (read: "thieves") for a mysterious "Mr. M," lose their job. Discussing their lack of a future, they hit on a couple of sexy chicks in a smoky bar who ask if they believe in the supernatural and the human soul. The chicks lead them to a mansion, tell them to "wait and keep an open mind." A strange personage named Pascal (Brad Dourif) with a French accent and a penchant for parapsychobabble wants them to find the "Rock of Lazarus," which supposedly allows souls to be brought back from the dead, and offers them $10,000 as a down payment to get it for him. Corey is given to pseudo-philosophical folk wisdom, Terrence is a pragmatist who spends his savings to buy his late mom a hi-fi headstone that plays "Amazing Grace." With no other employment options apparent, they agree to look for the Rock, which leads them into a lot of places best avoided, including a battered cemetery where they need to find the last resting place of one C. Frederick Finch.

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