American Genre Film Archive deems the Long Island-lensed gorefest THE SOULTANGLER worthy of preservation with their special edition DVD release.

Dr. Anton Lupesky (Pierre Devaux) has developed a drug called Anphorium which induces mindbending hallucinations but has the side effect of allowing him to transfer his soul into other bodies. Since two souls cannot inhabit the same body, he must kill his victims in order to reanimate them. To combat the hallucinations, he must replenish and enrich his own soul with those of young female victims abducted by his assistant Jessica (Louise Millmann) and junkie-in-need-of-a-fix Carl (Bob Cederberg). His philosophy that requires the merging of science and religion offends his colleagues at the Whitewood Institute, leading Dr. Janet Simpson (Ginny Dunlevy) to launch an investigation into his experiments with mentally ill patients that effectively runs him out of town although he is acquitted of all wrongdoing and allowed to keep his license. When he returns from Luxembourg a year later, the abductions start up again and rouse the curiosity of reporter Kim Castle (Jamie Kinser) whose religious father not only experienced delusions of godhood before his death but also wrote to her claiming that Lupesky wanted to possess his soul. Together with her police clerk boyfriend Zack (Tom Ciorciari) and roommate Sandra (Susan Chase), Kim starts to investigate Lupesky while Simpson makes the mistake of confronting the increasingly unhinged doctor to run him out of town again.

Shot in 1985 but not released until 1987, THE SOULTANGLER plays like RE-ANIMATOR on the cheap. Whether the film was actually inspired by the Stuart Gordon film and it follow-up FROM BEYOND – Lupesky states that he has found that the eyes are indeed the window to the soul and discount the significance of the pineal gland (the third eye) – its muddled plot does certainly evoke Lovecraft in its broad strokes and its gore effects by George Higham and STREET TRASH star/effects artist Mike Lackey are splattery and creative (a skullcap is removed to reveal a sentient brain with to eyes on stalks) if not as technically accomplished as the former films. Acting and direction is uneven, and the pacing is erratic, although the latter is due to the contractual requirement to extend the film's length to ninety minutes. Although shot in 16mm, the film often looks more like 8mm and occasionally evokes a somewhat dreamy atmosphere reminiscent more so of HORROR HOUSE ON HIGHWAY 5 than the more polished models. While much of the violence and gore in the first two-thirds of the film consists of Lupesky getting spattered with blood while pretending to cut up unwilling subjects without actually appearing to make incisions, the finale is a packed to the rafters with decapitations and eye gouging, some conventional zombies, as well as some reanimated corpses in varying degrees of dissection and decay (with one or two anticipating the Dr. Hill-controlled reanimated rejects in the climax of BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR). Chris Xefos of the band King Missile provides a rock underscore.

Unreleased in the United States, THE SOULTANGLER did pop up in other territories including Canada and Turkey. After a few years of being championed by the website Bleeding Skull, the film has finally made it to DVD courtesy of American Genre Film Archive. Shot on 16mm and finished on video, the lack of surviving film elements precluded a Blu-ray release so AGFA has made do with the film's 1" tape master. Apart from a few tape rolls, the interlaced, anamorphic pillarboxed fullscreen image is watchable but suggests that the film never looked particularly colorful or sharp. The Dolby Digital 2.0 mono audio is fine for what the mix is, with post-dubbed dialogue and voiceovers sounding stronger than on-set audio. There are no subtitle options.

The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by Bishow who readily admits the failings of the film as largely his own while giving credit to others who worked on the film including those he refers to as "real movie" people including Charles Kulsziski (WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN) who designed the prop hammer Carl uses to bludgeon victims as a favor and co-writer Lance Laurie who designed the title card but is also a popular artist. He recalls that Edie Falco NURSE JACKIE) was supposed to play one of the victims and is highly critical of actress who ended up playing the role but is rather generous in his assessment of some other actors including his brother-in-law Devaux and the contributions of his family (his brother Paul was the cinematographer and his sister did all of the cooking). Most interesting is his discussion of the sale and release of the film for which he credits producer Paula Vlodkowsky with getting him out of a verbal agreement with Prism who wanted him to add nudie scenes in favor a deal with an Italian company that still required getting the film up to feature-length (although this deal did not net a domestic release). He describes how his brother shot additional scenes in Washington D.C. with Devaux in an attempt to pad things out and explain the concept of the drug, soul transference, and his need for young female victims – although he admits that the religious concept was always hazy – while Vlodkowsky also wrote and directed some new footage introducing Carl and Jessica amidst utilizing every scrap of outtake footage (sort of reminiscent of the incorporation of make-up effect test footage into the final cut of Fred Olen Ray's SCALPS) they had to bring the film up to ninety minutes. He admits that the additions severely slow down the film and that the shorter director's cut runs faster although even then he suggests that viewers will be fast-forwarding.