Summer's Blood (2009)

Waste of time

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

First up, anyone reading this should be well aware that this movie is nothing but trash. And yet, there are degrees of trash. I'd rather fall in compost than rotting diapers. The acting is uneven, especially for our female lead, the camera work is dubious with its sort of floating grayness, and much of the dialogue is unnecessary, repetitive, at times inane, and narratively much is left to the imagination. The film did however hold my interest, purely because it so overtly dealt with perhaps the greatest modern taboo; incest.As other reviewers have mentioned, "Summer's Moon" walks the line between horror and thriller, but never quite commits to either making for a somewhat bland presentation. The best thing the film had going for itself was its bold and unapologetic prevalence of incest. Whereas a shock factor such as this should've been pushed to the extreme, evoking all sorts of disturbing and grotesque feelings, it's left on the backburner as sort of the "oh no!" of the movie. The implications of incest are what are so shocking and disgusting to people. These characters however are somewhat immune to it. Not ignorant of or oblivious to, but immune to. It never impacts any of the characters in the way that it would impact an audience. The implications of mother/son, father/daughter, and brother/sister are more than enough to have the film banned in several countries. "Summer's Moon" never exploits the atrocity the way it should have being that incest is such a focal point of the plot and indeed it would seem one or more characters' sole motivational force.I wish I could say that what the film passed up in the realm of psychological mayhem was made up for in gratuitous gore, but what little blood is shown isn't even as grisly as most prime time TV shows. There's never really any sense of dread or tension; certainly the script is to blame but the actors also had a very hard time emoting anything other than childish fear with such a whopping dose of abject curiosity thrown in that none of the characters are particularly convincing in their respective roles. Summer is just a little too nonchalant about being a prisoner, and Tom and Mom are just a little too aloof about keeping captives. There's just no indication that the characters themselves have any motivation, as if they had sprouted up in a vacuum and were plopped into this bizarre situation.Finally, initially significant portions of the film end up stuck with no context. The "garden" was at first a bit eerie, mysterious, weird enough I thought there might be some half-decent reveal later on, but Tom's revolving door of girl-slaves gets shoved aside with no explanation about any of it or its relevance to Summer, who is clearly serving another purpose. And while psycho-Dad was easily the best actor of the lot, what exactly was the mechanism of his lunacy? Did he methodically plan out this whole scenario just to rape his teenage daughter ad infinitum? What did ANY of the film have to do with him killing random women? What purpose did the kidnapping of the last girl play at all? So many incidents are isolated that it can be tough to piece together the arrow of causality.So, "Summer's Moon," you get a bit of a nod for diving right down into the incest, but somehow you got lost focusing on the murky reflection of the water rather than embracing it's depth and terror.

Obnoxious, foul-mouthed teen Summer (Ashley Greene) has a falling out with her drunken mother, runs away from home and hitches her way to a small town looking for the birth father she's never met. After getting caught shoplifting at a gas station, Summer escapes the police with help from a handsome young guy named Tom Hoxey (Peter Mooney). The two go to a bar and then hook up back at his place. The next morning when Summer attempts to leave, she's knocked out and wakes up chained in the basement. Turns out that Tom is a bit on the unhinged side and his favorite pastime is keeping unwilling girls prisoner in his downstairs "garden." Tom is aided by his lonely, miserable mama Gaia (Barbara Niven), who knows all about her son's little hobby but does nothing to help the victims. A little insane herself, Gaia is still a loving mother. Well actually, she's a little too loving if you catch my drift. Meanwhile, Darwin (Peter Michael Dillon) is snooping around town looking for his missing daughter Amber (Danielle Kind), who is also being held prisoner in the Hoxey home. Things take an even stranger turn when Tom's father and Gaia's husband Gant (Stephen McHattie) - a serial killer himself! - returns home for a visit.Though the premise is pretty ridiculous, it gets off to a rocky start and the whole thing comes off like an R-rated made-for-TV movie, it's fairly entertaining and has some pretty sick content. Most (not all) of the actors do a serviceable job. I was not very familiar with lead actress Greene, since you couldn't force me at gunpoint to sit through a TWILIGHT movie. She was highly abrasive (and thoroughly unlikable) the first half but seemed to do better as her character became more desperate. Mooney did a nice job as the unstable son and Niven and McHattie were both good as the psycho parents. The film is relatively low on gore, though there's some nudity provided by Cinthia Burke, playing a tough biker babe/garage mechanic here.The Canadian-born director also made three (very clever) HARRY KNUCKLES shorts and several other genre pictures I've yet to see: the memorably titled Troma release Jesus Christ VAMPIRE HUNTER (2001) and the H.G. Lewis-inspired horror-comedy SMASH CUT (2008).

Moderately disturbing thriller about a young hitchhiker(Ashley Green) seeking to find the father she has never known, running into mother and son psychos, who keep her chained in their basement. Anyone in the TWILIGHT series starring in a horror flick will be exploited by low budget filmmakers and distributors. This time around it's Ashley Green, in a more adult role, as a troubled girl who wishes to find her father, not knowing he's a serial killer named Gant(Stephen McHattie). Summer(Greene),while in the act of shoplifting food from a convenient store, is lent a ride by handsome Tom Hoxey(Peter Mooney). Tom sent the policeman, who caught Summer, in the opposite direction. Tom takes Summer to his home and the two have sex with mama Gaia(Barbara Niven)listening intently on the outside of his door. Tom decides Summer should "hang out" in his basement garden where he keeps other girls he kidnaps with Gaia unwilling to interfere in freeing those captured. Better still is the fact that Gant is Tom's father..yep, Tom and Summer are step brother and sister. So the family awaits Gant's return, as the dread builds. While McHattie is not in the film very long, his menacing presence when he does appear is quite palpable. You can just sense how Tom fears his daddy's arrival, growing fond of Summer, worried that she will be in danger(letting her go, though, is out of the question)when he comes home. Mooney and Niven are appropriately warped as the twisted mother and son who appear to the locals in their community as normal when they're anything but. Greene is pretty and vacuous as the tortured Summer, who, I believe, develops Stockholmes while kept prisoner in the Hoxeys' home, forced to do manual chores if granted freedom from her bonds..it does seem that, after a couple attempts to flee when loosened from her chains are disrupted, Summer becomes attached to Tom.

Just watched "Summer's Blood" and I can say it's worth-watching movie. I'm pleasantly surprised to see Ashley Greene in such a serious role. I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes this style. It's a story that keeps you "awake" to the end, you can't figure out what the heroes are going to do. At short I really, really LOVE this movie and I'll record it on a disk with "Thirteen","Deep Winter" and "Lords of Dogtown". "Summer's blood" is unique movie as i saw it. It has good plot, very good actors and keeps the public in tension. Honestly I downloaded it because of Ashley Greene and I'm definitely glad that I did watched it. It's nice. Love it.