Lost Souls

Lost Souls is a 2000 American apocalyptic supernatural horror film directed by Janusz Kamiński, in his directorial debut, and starring Winona Ryder, Ben Chaplin, Elias Koteas, and John Hurt. Its plot focuses on a devout Catholic woman who becomes convinced through the decoding of ciphers that a successful writer has been designated by Satan to become to antichrist. Completed in 1998 from a screenplay by Pierce Gardner and co-produced by Meg Ryan, Lost Souls was delayed from theatrical release due to the saturation of similarly-themed horror films at the nearing of the millennium, such as End of Days and Stigmata (both released in 1999). It was released theatrically in the United States on October 13, 2000. It received largely negative reviews and was a box-office bomb, grossing $31.4 million against a $50-million budget. Plot Maya Larkin, a devout Roman Catholic who works as a schoolteacher for a New York City diocese, accompanies Father Lareaux, Father Jeremy, and John Townsend to a psychiatric clinic to exorcise Henry Birdson, who has been experiencing epileptic seizures and obsessively scribbling a mysterious series of numbers. The exorcism is unsuccessful, however, as Henry falls into a coma and Father Lareaux is weakened. Maya smuggles Henry’s notes out and, via polyalphabetic substitution, she translates the numbers and receives the name "Peter Kelson". Maya then learns from television that Peter Kelson is a writer who researches serial killers and studies pathological narcissism and parapsychology. In the meantime, Peter meets with his family. Over dinner, he shares a repetitive dream in which he is reading a book with the characters "XES" on the cover. Later, one of the priests discover that it is the Greek number "χεζ", which in its value 22 + 5 + 6, indicates that the incarnation of the devil will meet a man in the minute of his 33rd birthday.