Main cast: Aiden Turner (Mike Jones), Sunny Mabrey (Angie Jones), Liz McGeever (Mary), Chloe Garcia-Frizzi (Sophie), and Sophia Garcia-Frizzi (Sophie)
Director: Diego Silva Acevedo

Perhaps there is an interesting idea in Hunting Souls, which I can’t give away as I’m sure there are some people that want to watch this thing and don’t want to be spoiled, but the execution is so “haunted home with a waif child” generic that I am hard pressed to care.

Mike and Angie Jones live in a big house, perfect for haunting and demon squatters, with their waif daughter Sophie whose illness can’t be explained by the doctors. Sophie seems to be wasting away and there are unexplained bruises on her body, which puts her parents under scrutiny by the cops and social services, but really, no one can explain what is happening to her.

Meanwhile, Mike has recurrent nightmares in which he is running away and being hunted by hooded people with guns and such.

Then, strange things begin to happen, things that endanger Sophie.

Really, what is going on?

It’s hard to care because Mike and Angie are horrifically stupid parents. Oh, their daughter nearly drowns in the bathtub and gets thrown out the window! Yikes, strange writings appear on the walls! Doors open and close on their own! Is that… a demon?

While most people in their positions will immediately vacate their homes or call the cops, these two just go on with their lives as if these unexplained incidents were just minor inconveniences. They have no issues letting Sophie run off to do whatever on her own in that same house where all these dangerous and freaking bizarre things are happening. Honestly, the only person I feel sorry for her is the poor daughter, because she never asked to be born to these grotesquely dumb-dumb adults.

Then, conveniently enough, Mike’s colleague has a wife that just happens to be into the woo-woo stuff and she also conveniently knows about the demon that is plaguing Sophie. This character becomes the information dump device that lets the audience find out exactly what is going on, because she lays out everything from what the demon is to how to stop it.

Therefore, there’s no surprise left in this movie, and what’s left is a low budget wannabe of Insidious. To be fair, this movie isn’t a carbon copy of that movie, but rather, it tries very hard to rehash the tropes and jump scares. Only, the script is so bloody stupid that it makes Insidious seem like a brainy masterpiece.

Worst of all is the acting by the adult cast members that make the child actors playing Sophie come off as the best one of the lot. Everyone else looks like they’d mouthing off lines that they have just read for the first time a few minutes earlier, when they are not shambling, confused Joe Biden-style, around the screen.

Maybe this movie is an audition on producer and director Diego Silva Acevedo’s efforts to get noticed by Jason Blumhouse and have that man throw money his way. If that were the case, I almost wish him all the luck because he really needs it—almost, that is, because damn, he does me dirty by making this thing available for me to inadvertently watch and suffer a lot of pain as a result.

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