6 SOULS (2013) **

Julianne Moore stars as a widowed shrink whose father (Jeffrey DeMunn from Christmas Evil) gets his kicks by finding medical oddities for her to examine.  His latest discovery (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a split personality who has a seemingly endless supply of new personalities.  As Moore analyzes Meyers, people close to her wind up dead and he begins to take on their personalities. 

6 Souls starts off well enough.  At times, it resembles a Primal Fear variation mixed with a Lifetime Movie.  Once we learn Meyers’ big secret, the wheels begin coming off in short order.  It also doesn’t help that the ending is pretty crummy, and the big twist in the finale is predictable too.  Directors Marlind and Stein (who directed the much better Underworld:  Awakening) bring very little style to the table and stage the various jump scares and big reveals in a pedestrian manner.

Moore gives a solid performance, all things considered.  Even though the movie gets increasingly schlocky as it goes along, she refuses to phone it in.  Meyers also does an admirable job going from personality to personality, although his histrionics aren’t enough to save the flick. 

The most interesting thing for me was that it was written by Michael Cooney, the man who wrote Identity and directed the greatest killer snowman movie of all time, Jack Frost.  As a fan of Cooney’s work, I had fun spotting how and where he ripped off his own material.  Like Jack Frost, it starts off with a serial killer about to be executed at midnight, and like Identity the plot hinges heavily on a split personality gimmick.  6 Souls also features a character whose head winds up bending backwards, which figures into the plots of both Jack Frost and Identity.  This is by far, the least of the three, but at least the solid lead performances make it bearable. 

AKA:  Shelter.