My Soul to Take / YMMV

Alternate Character Interpretation: Does Penelope single out Bug while she is praying for the Riverton 7 to stay safe because she likes him, because she knows he is the son of a Serial Killer, or both?
Anti-Climax Boss: After The Reveal, Bug just stabs Alex.
Awesome Music: "You're Going Down" by Sick Puppies in the trailer.
Base-Breaking Character: Blind Black Guy Jerome and Token Wholesome Penelope have some who praise them as layered and entertaining characters and others who find their dialogue Narmy and feel they are fairly clichéd.
Complete Monster: The Riverton Ripper is a malevolent spirit ^note who caused a schizophrenic man named Abel Plenkov to unknowingly commit a series of murders in his town. When Abel discovered him, the Ripper took full control, killing Abel’s doctor and pregnant wife, and attempting to kill several others, including Abel’s young daughter before seemingly disappearing, but actually jumping into the body of a baby. Sixteen years later, when the Riverton Seven, the teenagers who happened to be born on the day the Ripper vanished, fail to complete a ritual meant to keep the Ripper away, the Ripper returns and begins killing them off. After killing five of the seven, leaving only Bug and his friend Alex, and having also killed Bug’s foster mother and a policeman, the Ripper reveals that his soul had been in Alex, and he tries to make a deal with Bug to kill Bug’s sister and pin the murders on the recently-deceased Jerome so that they would be seen as heroes. When Bug refuses, the Ripper tries to kill him as well.
Designated Hero: Fang. She's intended to be a sympathetic Jerk with a Heart of Gold to justify her survival. That said, in the film all that's really shown to the viewers is a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk. She beats up and bullies her brother for having the wrong birthday, bullies and belittles everyone else in the school, and is in general devoid of sympathetic qualities or redeeming personality traits.
Fan-Preferred Cut Content:
- The deleted scenes of Fang telling Bug the truth about him in a calmer manner, Jay’s mother exploring his room, and more puppets being shown during the party at the river are all fairly unimportant, but have fans who think they added some useful and interesting atmosphere to the film.
- Some people like the alternate ending, feeling that even though The Hero Dies, there is something moving about the way the kids end up Together in Death.
Harsher in Hindsight: Danai Gurira in this movie gets a Slashed Throat, but survives. Then in Black Panther (2018), Gurira would later play a member of the Dora Milaje who is Forced to Watch a comrade getting her throat slashed by the Big Bad during the climatic battle and unlike Gurira in this film, the woman in the latter movie doesn't survive.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Actors Frank Grillo, Jessica Hecht, Danai Gurira and Denzel Whitaker would later be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Grillo would play Crossbones in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War, Hecht would play Audrey Eastman in Jessica Jones (2015), Gurira would later play Okoye in Black Panther (2018) and Avengers: Infinity War and Whitaker would play the younger version of Zuri in Black Panther (2018), reuniting with his co-star Gurira from this movie.
Narm: The killer screaming "FEAR YE THE RIPPER" is very hard to take seriously. No wonder most movie killers are silent.
One-Scene Wonder:
- Dr. Blake, Plenkov’s kind-hearted and decisive psychiatrist, only appears in the opening scene but is considered to be a big part of the reason why the opening scene sets a high bar that the rest of the scene struggles to match.
- Melanie Pratt only appears in one short scene, praying with Penelope after getting pregnant, but the scene manages to be both heartfelt and humorous.
Retroactive Recognition: Danai Gurira plays the unfortunate paramedic who has her throat slashed at the beginning of the movie. She would be later known for The Walking Dead and Black Panther (2018).
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- Penelope and Brittany have hints of getting into a Love Triangle with Bug and both get some character depth shown or hinted at, but both die in the second act without ever acting on their potential feelings for Bug, when some fans think either of them or both of them together could have been a better Final Girl than Fang.
- A lot of fans wish One Scene Wonders Melanie and Dr. Blake had been in more than one scene each.
  - Blake could have provided the kids with good insight into the legend surrounding his former patient.
  - Melanie is pregnant by Brandon, is the principal's daughter, and is close friends with Penelope, all of which could have given her more reasons to interact with the other characters.
Took the Bad Film Seriously: While the film itself is generally panned as one of Craven's worst, most viewers acknowledge that the cast try pretty hard to avoid Dull Surprise and make their characters likable, with mixed success. John Magaro (Alex), Zena Grey (Penelope), and Frank Grillo (Detective Paterson) probably get most of this sentiment.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: Arguably the Animal Motif of the condor. The idea established at the end seems to be the other kids' souls were going to Bug because he's the condor and "eats death". Whether that's sufficient is up to you.
- The slash marks in Bug's shirt are diagonal down the shoulder blades, exactly where a set of angel wings would be.

YMMV / My Soul to Take

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