Soultaker

Soultaker is a 1990 fantasy film starring Vivian Schilling (who wrote the screenplay and co-wrote the original story), Joe Estevez and Robert Z'Dar. The story involves a group of teenagers - unaware that they were killed in a car crash (due to the carelessness of their coked up driver/good friend) - on the run from an angel of death. As they flee from "The Soultaker", he begins picking them off one-by-one and becomes infatuated with one of the teenagers, Natalie, who is the spitting image of his lover in a past life. The two remaining teens, Natalie and her ex-boyfriend Zach, attempt to reunite their souls with their hospitalized bodies before their parents decide to pull the plug.

The film has the dubious distinction of being featured on a tenth season episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, featuring the guest returns of TV's Frank and Joel Robinson. However, it also won a Saturn Award in 1992 for Best Genre Video Release. All told, it's not that bad a movie, despite its low budget and obviously dated fashions. Doesn't mean there isn't plenty for Mike and the 'Bots to poke fun at, though.

Completely unrelated to the Anime series with the same name.

Tropes used in Soultaker include:

• And Starring: Robert Z'Dar as the Angel of Death
• Author Appeal: Vivian Schilling was in an auto accident that nearly ended her life and has inspired much of her work. Vivian's book Quietus has received positive reviews and is about a plane crash survivor who is haunted by angels of death.
  • Also, the movie is a Love Triangle about two men fighting to win the heart of Vivian's character.
• Conviction by Counterfactual Clue: The detective investigating the crash tries to get his Grissom on by questioning the odds of a car door opening by itself in a high-speed impact. Crow quickly and correctly points out that the odds are actually quite good.
• Determinator: The Estevez reaper.
• Damsel in Distress: Natalie
• The Eighties. Depressingly so. (Production ran in the late '80s.)
• Fan Service: The extremely lengthy sequence of Natalie taking a bath is clearly only in the film to add this element. Stranger still that the actress actually wrote this film.
• Flash Back: The Estevez reaper has flashbacks to his previous life and killing his love.
• Fingertip Drug Analysis
• Get On With It Already: "This has action and nostalgia, because we've seen it before."
• Guns Are Worthless:

Crow: ...So a 7-iron knocks him cold but a gun does nothing.

• • Well, the implication was that the Soultaker didn't see Zack coming with the golf club and thus couldn't go intangible, but because he knew Natalie was going to shoot him he could prepare in advance.
    • So why not always go intangible?
• Hey, It's That Guy!: Joe Estevez, younger brother of Martin Sheen and star (of about two scenes) of the Mystery Science Theater 3000-featured film Werewolf.
  • And B-movie veteran Robert Z'Dar, who MSTies will recognize from Future War. More general schlock enthusiasts will know him from the Kabuki Kop movies, which I assure you are real.
    • You may also know Z'Dar as The Maniac Cop.
• Identical Stranger: Natalie happens to look exactly like the Estevez reaper's wife.
• Informed Attractiveness: Natalie. She's so pretty!
• Invisible to Normals: The disembodied souls, who are otherwise able to interact normally with physical objects.
• Named After Somebody Famous: Zach Taylor shares a name with the 12th President of the United States
• No Name Given: The Estevez soultaker.
• Neutral Female: Natalie
• Noun Verber: The Soultakers.
• Our Souls Are Different: Apparently, they can be stuffed into rings and carried around like Pokémon.
• Psychopomp: When you kill somebody in life, this becomes your job in the afterlife. This is probably the only halfway cool idea in the movie.
• Redheaded Hero
• Reincarnation Romance
• Self-Insert Fic
• Shower Scene: With the bonus of a peeping mom.
• Stairway to Heaven: There is none, apparently.
  • It's more like an elevator connected to a hallway to Heaven.
  • There is, however, a ladder.
• The Stoner: Brad claims he gave up coke, but got a snootful before driving the car which led to the crash.
• Teleport Spam: The Estevez reaper likes to teleport while walking. In a straight line. Achieving the same exact pace he would if he didn't bother.
• Timed Mission: The Estevez reaper needs to take all the characters' souls to the afterlife within a certain amount of time, because...uh...hm...W-well, when he fails, it looks like he loses his authority to take them away due to the cosmic balance or...something?
  • The main characters discover that Natalie's body is scheduled to be taken off life support at midnight, and have to resurrect themselves before then. They don't actually make it in time, but it doesn't seem to matter, even though the camera keeps focusing on a clock for minutes afterwards.
• Viewers Are Goldfish: So very, very, very much.
• Voluntary Shapeshifter: The Estevez soultaker, who uses this power to take the form of the heroine's mother.