Dark Summer

Oh my god what an annoying movie. Close ups. Close ups. Close ups. Slow camera panning, close up camera panning. So much fudging close up camera panning. Jesus Christ almighty. This is one seriously annoyingly shot movie. Dear director, or whoever decided to have all shots, (except three, as I can remember) being zoomed in close up shots: Having close up shots of the actors, the 'action', the walking, the talking, the everything, does not make it good or interesting. For some shots, OK, but for every single god damn shot? I hope you never make a movie again. Seriously, someone should have punched him square in the mouth and said: You are not a good director, stop it with the close ups!! OK, on to the movie. There is a super skinny silent dude, a dopey eyed chick, and a.. black dude thats, well, he was alright. And there's Peter Stormare, he's kinda cool. There is some kind of plot, but damn it's slow. Slow and boring, and not interesting. There are some scenes that are supposed to be suspenseful and scary, but they are not. It is not scary at all. Not even slightly. And did I mention the close ups? And the camera panning the walls and the ceiling and the floor and the grass and the actors, and the everything ever? And the close ups? And the close ups? Close ups. Close. Ups. Movie is a waste of time. There is not fun here, at all.

source: Dark Summer

So, this is Dark Summer (2015) Directed by Paul Solet, and written by Mike Le, Spoiler Alert, I'm going to be discussing this movie, Should you watch it? looking at the board you will find a lot of negative comments. I thought it had merit. I can understand why it rubbed so many the wrong way, I have heard the term boring used a lot. I disagree, I did not find it boring. First the story, Daniel, played by Keir Gilchrist is a seventeen year old placed on house arrest for the summer, while his parents are away. He is monitored by his parole agent Stokes played by Peter Stormare. He has two friends who violate the terms of the house arrest, by visiting, and staying with him, Abby, his sexy girlfriend played by Stella Maeve and his Black friend Kevin played by Maestro Harrell. Bottom line; Daniel is the victim of some very dark spell cast on him by Mona, a demonic spirit played by Grace Phipps. Daniels friend try to break the spell, Nothing however is quite clear, many open questions when it ends abruptly. I would say that the directors style of story telling either takes the blame for the movies slow pace, or takes the credit for giving us an unusual experience. I had recently seen one of the Insidious spin offs, It did everything by the book, and totally failed to connect. Dark Summer plays it different. There are long stretches reminiscent of Donny Darko (2001) in tone and spirit. Dark Summer comes off as an "Impressionist" nightmare. there is very little given the viewer concerning the back stories, We enter the world of Daniels nightmare, Extreme close ups and unusual camera movement contribute to the air of malignant unease. Color figures strongly in setting the tone and the action. The budget may have been low, but the scares generated are more worthy then many an overused CGI horror film, think along the lines of Paranormal Activity. The acting overall is very good. The production values, sound design, editing, all show thought, unfortunately more so than the plot details. The end was just abrupt, the reasons for all this carnage were too ambiguous for this viewer. I give it eight out of ten, director shows promise, stars.

Keir Gilchrist, who I typically love (he was great in It Follows and United States of Tara, where I was first introduced to him), plays Daniel in this supernatural horror/thriller, a bit of a hacker who is under house arrest for cyberstalking his classmate and love interest, Mona (played by Grace Phipps). Things start to get spooky after he watches her commit suicide and his friends Abby (Stella Maeve) and Kevin (Maestro Harrell) are worried about his safety — and his sanity — as he spirals into a pretty dangerous mental state and fears for his own life. Honestly… meh. This movie didn't offer much. It occasionally had some interesting atmosphere but ultimately it was just boring. I thought the premise — Daniel being stuck in his home while one might normally run the hell away — was interesting initially, but the scares were just too cheesy and predictable to really have any serious effect. I may have audibly yawned when it's revealed early on that his friend Abby has this unrequited love for him. It winds up being crucial to the storyline in the surprise ending, but it was just predictable. His either complete obliviousness to the painfully obvious or inability to voice his emotions just fits right into the whole stereotype of the teenager who is textbook smart (able to hack into computers, etc) but emotionally stunted. I thought the dream that Daniel had of him and Abby in the pool was cool, and sort of fit into the atmosphere that I WISH this movie had. It was like a weird offspring of hazy, dreamlike indie movie and cheap teen thriller. There were a couple good, creepy moments — his phone going blank and playing "When" by Elysian Fields, for example — but largely the scares fell flat, especially any time they showed Mona. I would have much rather she be kept more vague and shadowy, or not physically appearing at all. But then suddenly we descend inexplicably into the world of witchcraft and spells and while there's a decent surprise ending, it was too far gone for me at that point. Even Peter Stormare couldn't save this one with his painfully stereotypical parole officer role. Booo.

To start off, lately I've started to watch lower rated movies to find the hidden gems that may be out there. This experience led me to Dark Summer. While the concept of the movie is intriguing, the movie itself fell short. The acting was not the greatest, however also not the worst. Possibly with a better script we could have seen some breathtaking shots from them unfortunately that's just not so. The camera work involves too many close ups, most of which are unnecessary, but is otherwise decently done. For a horror/thriller the movie is just not there.

I like slow movies, especially slow horror movies. The old school kind of horrors. Some of the newer ones have actually been quite good (It Follows for example), so I went for this open minded. Well, it really was slow. Even tho there are some intense moments, there are also a lot of slowly lingering scenes so I recommend not watching this when you are tired, I was close to dosing off a few times. Soundtrack and the sound editing were good. FX were pretty good too. The slow style was somewhat good too, but the overall touch how everything was done didn't quite deliver. This movie lacks style that makes movies like It Follows exceptional. Cinematography was OK, and with more effort into color grading it might've been very good looking movie. Now it falls a bit short. Acting was OK. Surprisingly Peter Stormare does the worst role here. He kind of has the part that is often played by has-been actors that have been dug up from 80s movies after making years of bad TV series. I don't think Stormare is quite there yet, but he truly sucks here. No one else really shines either, but are passable. Acting was a bit uneven, shuttling between pretentious, natural and "artistic". Easily forgettable and can't really say I enjoyed it that much.

OK so first of all, this movie is really deceptive. You have no idea what it's about from reading the description on most internet sites. I will tell you this movie is more about magic than Harry Potter! It's funny people watch Harry Potter and get all into magic but if you really want to know what real magic is like, watch this film. The writers here definitely know what they are writing about. These people studied magic or at least got themselves familiar with it enough to sound like they knew what they were doing when they wrote this film. Most of the time when I watch movies about magic, I rip them to shreds. They are totally make believe and get it all entirely wrong. They are just blatantly wrong. The two movies that did some homework and didn't make me feel like I gagged , are this one and "At the Devils Door". These two movies are the most realistic magical movies I've seen. And yes.... both of them are entirely possible too; if you believe in that sort of thing ( you should). This movie was great. I'm surprised at the poor reviews ( while they give other movies who have absolutely no basis in reality high marks ) ( IMDb if nothing else tells us where humanity is at) watch it !! Its great. What else is there to say? And if you're in to magic, this movie wont drive you nuts with the falsities. Hype. Rumor. Myth. Misconceptions.

"Dark Summer" is a bit slow, but manages to lead itself to success, execution a unique, cool horror film that pays off. First for the plot of this film. I honestly felt as if it was unique and fresh, the plot / story all together has a lot to offer, all of which leading to a pleasant experience if you look it the right direction. The plot also successfully manages to intertwine multiple sub-genres of horror, including cyber, gore / blood, and paranormal. As the plot progressed more, and more throughout the film, it has some interesting turns as well. Instead of keeping it straight up horror, the story lead towards more depth in the story, which cleared some things out some may of missed. It takes a somewhat mystery genre-like turn, as said before digging deeper into the story of the film, becoming pleasant, and giving the viewer more, and more to look forward to in terms of the events of the movie, as well as the plot / storyline itself. For the characters of the film, however; The film, honestly didn't go too in depth with this element. The film kept the characters, in a way, a bit secluded from the audience knowing much of them, they're backgrounds, life stories, etc. We didn't exactly get too much information on some of the specific actions of which the characters did, as well as some things of which they portrayed in certain scenes. [ Which won't be spoiled of course ] However, if you simply view the characters by there actions, choices, etc. they were quite solid. Each character, also had quite a unique personality, as far as the audience could experience. They each seemed to have a unique, and likable personality's each. Overall, the characters had neat, and fresh personalities, with little, to no clichés. They're acting towards they're characters noticeably had emphasis. In this case, was good. Overall nicely done, likable characters, and good acting. Just not as much depth, and understandings as executed toward the plot. Finally for the visual effects of the movie. For what it was, and what was there, it was intriguing to say the least. This movie had very unique visual effects, of which introduce some unique new horror visuals. As said before, the film succeeds in intertwining many sub-genres of horror, of which lead to more wide spread amounts of visual potential, of which here were defiantly not missed! The visual gore in this movie wasn't bad. The film succeeds in showing the audience, not the biggest amount of blood, and gore, but what seems to be just enough. As the film progresses, the paranormal entity(ies) shown, as well weren't bad, but in terms of the ghosts of which were shown, they weren't the best, but as said before just right, fitting right in along with the story. In conclusion, the visual effects fit in with the story, and work for what they were. They seemed just right in terms of the film, displaying some unique eye candy along the way. In conclusion. "Dark Summer" displayed some unique, and fresh new execution in terms of much needed movie elements. The acting, as well as the characters were enjoyable, and fine for what they were. The visual effects were great, and fit right in. Overall, turning out to be one entertaining horror film! But as said before. Depending on how you view the film. Not all horror fans will enjoy this, I may add, again, as said before, this film is a bit slow, and tends to drag, but leads to story depth. But if you're different, I'd recommend this to any, of not all horror fans looking for a unique, fresh take on the genre.

So let me start off by saying that this was a decent film in the end. But it DOES take until the end to vindicate the dull hour that precedes it. Fortunately, I don't feel the need to watch what I consider dull or predictable parts of films. I figure that's the joy of watching at home instead of the theater. So you have to know that this is a predictable movie in terms of relationships. It's evident early on that there's unrequited love going on and that is a big part of the film. Since this is the single most obvious part of the plot and for some reason takes up almost half the film, feel free to skip it all once you recognize the relationship. You'll see it within the first 5 minutes. After that is a lot of nothing mixed in with scares intermittently as is expected in a horror film. It's not too gory and there are some decent creepy moments throughout. Why the high rating, you may ask. It's all in the ending! This is one of those rare movies where I didn't see the end coming and that made all the fast forwarding worth it. Also, other reviewers said the movie was dark. I will say that I did not have that trouble with watching it on Netflix. Platform differences maybe?

I would have given a a higher rating if it hadn't been as slow as it was, but given that, it kept my attention and was worth waiting for. The acting was very good. Not the usual awkward moments you see in low budget films. No stupid cats jumping out of the closet, or music that ruins the moment by trying to make it seem even scarier. Some of the scenes caught me by surprise. Was it the best horror film I've ever seen? No, but I felt it was chilling and suspenseful. There was some gore, but not over the top so if a splatter-fest is your thing, this may not fill the bill. If you're more into psychological thrillers, this could do it for you. Be sure to watch through the credits to the end. All in all, a pretty entertaining horror film. Give it a watch!