Pulpmovies Reviews

Set in 1959, Heavy Soul is the tale of Dakota Thompson (Sally Conway), the good girl who is corrupted by the twisted morals of the time and begins her descent into addiction and promiscuity.

Starting with a portentous voice over, the film goes on to show how the sheltered Dakota is talked into going to a party. Once there, local bad boy, Hal Grover (Joe Cabatit), takes an interest in her leading her by steps into ever greater dangers so that by the end of the party she is… an ADDICT.

With Heavy Soul, director, Oren Shai takes his cues from the paranoid and exploitative ‘social guidance films’ of the era, but does a very stylish job of bringing them right up to date. Alternating between richly coloured scenes and heavily narrated black and white footage, and driven by an excellent – and always appropriate – rock and roll score, the film has a slightly surreal air and a gorgeous visual style.

Of course, all the visuals in the world are not enough if the characters don’t keep you engaged. And here Sally Conway does an incredible job with a consistently convincing and wholly sympathetic performance. Even when the dialogue becomes deeply corny – as it must, given the source of this film’s inspiration – Conway manages to remain both believable and sympathetic.

I’ve briefly mentioned the soundtrack already, but since this makes up such a major part of the film it’s worth mentioning again. A well selected collection of rockabilly songs is played throughout the film – including a solo performance from Pete Ludovico as heart-throb singer Johnny B - giving it a strong feeling of having been transposed directly from the fifties. But this is not a music film and, far form being intrusive, the soundtrack works with the plot perfectly, striking just the right note (often literally) at just the right time to keep things moving forwards.

With Heavy Soul, Oren Shai walks the fine line between parody and homage, and does so to great effect. He clearly has a great deal of affection for the teen culture of the time, as well as for the period’s exploitation films, but this doesn’t stop him from mercilessly sending up the cultural paranoia that was also very much in evidence at the time.

Heavy Soul, then, is a tribute to 1950s teen culture and to the exploitation films and drive-in movies that emerged around them. It’s also a spot on satire of the sort of moral panic that these films both fed on and encouraged and which, in not too dissimilar a form, still exists today.

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