"Soul Searchers" review

Soul Searchers (2006)

Directed by Bentley Mitchum
Writing credits Bentley Mitchum

Billy Drago.... Man in Black
Luke Tingle.... Charlie Carter
Jaime Anstead.... Cat
Christopher Mitchum.... Sheriff Traft
Bentley Mitchum.... John Bender
Scott Staggers.... Adam Weaver
Julie St. Claire.... Jade Lovecraft

I got a screening copy of “Soul Searchers” from the director. I enjoy writing that. It makes me feel important. If someone asks me, “Did you see “Soul Searchers”? I would regale them with tales of my screening copy. What a tale it would be. It would go something like this: Bentley: You want to review my movie? Me: Do I?! Put that sucker in the mail! Exciting eh?

“Soul Searchers” is the story of small town boy Charlie Carter who can’t keep his shirt on to save his life. He moves to the big, bad L.A. to get away from it all. Within hours of his arrival, he finds himself at a strip club. He runs into an old acquaintance who wants to show him around town. At a Hollywood Hills party, he runs into a hot older woman who wants to take him up north to see her “family”. People love showing this guy around. It must be his rampant nakedness that excites them. The plot thickens as the people of the small town are not what they seem. Our shirtless hero might not be all that he seems as well…

I am a sucker for L.A. stories and for any movie with a strip club scene. As we are all well aware, B-movie law states that any movie with a strip club scene must be good on some level. "Soul Searchers" starts off OK but then it kind of wanders aimlessly for the next 45 minutes. Charlie and his hot girlfriend hit the road and don't do much of anything. Soon a secret cult manifests itself and proceeds to hunt Charlie down for the rest of the movie. His topless body turns them on to no end. They want him on the slab as soon as possible. Unfortunately, “Soul Searchers” doesn’t have enough exploitative elements for me to recommend it. Well, no exploitative elements unless you like seeing a buff guy run around. It just doesn’t do it for me. “Soul Searchers” needed some more horror scenes to give it some punch. The cult should have done more than just chase Charlie up and down Main Street. One or two, (or three), scenes of the cult attacking some other people would have given the movie the blood and guts shot it needed.

One last thing, speaking as the B-movie fiend I am, I was also very disappointed that the female lead does not get naked although she's regularly having sex. That's a B-movie no-no. She has sex at least four times but no topless scenes. She also has a shower scene and you can clearly see that she is wearing some kind of body stocking to cover all of her interesting parts. At the very end of the movie, she tries to explain it all away by telling Charlie that they never actually had sex. It was all in his mind. It must have been all in my mind too because I could have sworn I saw them rolling around in bed. It was all a B-movie mirage.

SCORE: 1.5 out of 4 shirt searching Charlies