He never hurt a soul until the day he died.
— Tagline
A Slasher Movie from 2005. Directed by Jim Gillespie, who had previously directed I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and D-Tox (2002).
In a small town in the state of Louisiana, a car accident on a bridge kills a man, who is soon brought back to life by Voodoo gone awry as a living corpse which seeks to kill other people.
Nothing to do with the Marvel comic character or his 2018 film adaptation, or with the 1981 horror film about a snake in a townhouse.
This film has examples of:
- Big Bad: Ray Sawyer, or rather his corpse that is possessed by literal evil.
- Crowbar Combatant: After Ray comes back alive as a vessel for evil, he picks up a crowbar from his gas station to kill a deputy, and holds on to it for the rest of the film.
- Dangerous Windows: Since he can't step inside Miss Emmie's house, Ray hurls a chain through a window to grab his estranged son Sean, and drags him outside to be killed.
- Decoy Protagonist: One could consider Sean to be one considering his connection to the killer, but he dies like the rest.
- Final Girl: Out of the main cast, Eden is the only one to defeat Ray and survive.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Eden puts an end to Ray by driving him against a wall, which splits him in half and detaches both of his arms.
- Hollywood Voodoo: What created and motivates the villain. Ray, a normal gas station owner, gets bitten by several snakes that were used by a Mambo (Voodoo priestess) to milk evil from criminals and such to give them absolution, which turns him into a vessel for the said evil, which must take souls from others to prolong his unnatural life.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: During a car chase scene, Ray grabs Eden's coworker Rachel from the truck that the surviving cast is driving, causing a tug of war between their vehicle and his. The two cars end up driving towards a tree with lots of long branches, one of which Rachel ends up being impaled upon.
- Man on Fire: Eden disrupts Ray's ritual in the crypt by setting his right arm on fire in the process. She then throws a bottle of alcohol on him, setting his entire upper body aflame.
- One-Word Title
- Place of Protection: Ray is unable to step inside the house of Cece's grandmother, as it is a blessed place. He gets around this by tying one of its corners to his tow truck, and starts tearing it away, dragging several characters with it.
- Playing Possum: After finding her way into the crypt that Ray is using to stash the bodies of those that he has killed, Eden hears him approaching and hides herself within the pile of his victims, playing dead.
- Sequel Hook: After Ray is cut into pieces by Eden, the snakes inhabiting his body are shown leaving it and lunging at the camera, suggesting that they might turn another person into a vessel for the evil that they are carrying.
- Slashed Throat:
- After Ray's death, Deputy Turner is tasked to deliver Ray's tow truck back to his gas station. After getting there, Turner is killed by the recently resurrected Ray, who delivers the first of the two mortal blows by slashing his throat with a crowbar.
- After interrupting her ritual to slow him down, Ray kills Cece by slicing her throat with a knife.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Sean is shown vomiting on the ground after finding the remains of Tammy and Patty inside Ray's garage.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: Cece states that since Ray was resurrected by getting taken over by evil drained by those absolved by her grandmother, he now must steal souls from others.
