Summoned (2013)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Best movie ever!

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Suspenseful till the end. Despite only a few minutes on screen, Cuba Gooding stole every scene he was in. A mixture of legal thriller with the supernatural, I had no idea it was a made for TV movie. Some scenes are actually creepy. Great movie to enjoy on a Sunday. The score added tension to the scenes, and every minute you keep wondering what is going to happen next. The key strength to the movie is how the it manages to keep you hooked by keeping you guessing. First you guess whether the characters would make it to the end. Then you start to guess what actually happened that led to this story in the first place. The director slowly drops small hints throughout the scenes till the ending. It was refreshing to see a genuine mystery combined with the supernatural without any distracting special effects.

First off, let's just be honest. The acting in this movie was pretty bad. The stilted dialog and wooden performances made it hard to finish this movie.Cuba Gooding Jr.'s name is added to this film supposedly to give it credibility. He's barely in the movie. After his last several films, it would seem that his name is becoming more and more associated with low budget specials such as this one.The storyline is right out of a made for TV movie. The ending was so cliché that it was painful. I would not recommend this movie unless you're really bored and there's no paint to watch drying.

Cuba Gooding, Jr. has been in some real dogs lately, so with "Summoned", I didn't expect much. What I didn't expect was for Mr. Gooding to make a couple of bland cameo appearances that added exactly nothing to the story. Any actor from Central Casting could as easily have filled this slot. And playing on Mr. Gooding's name to sell the film, well, considering his recent films, I'm not sure that was a brilliant idea either. Getting past that, this film had reasonable suspense but was of course disappointing since it made no sense whatsoever. In the beginning it appears that the spirit of an executed serial killer has come back to avenge himself on the 12 jurors who convicted him. But that's just trick photography. We eventually learn that a real live person is doing the killing. But why? Forget the many reasons you might dream up. There is no reason. Just senseless killing. For all that, the actors do a credible job and keep up the suspense. It's simply that the end and the entire exposition turn out to be so lame it makes you feel you've been cheated…again. And what in the world does the word "Summoned" have to do with this?

Part horror movie, part mystery, "Summoned" is a ghost story about a serial killer who was executed years ago and has come back to haunt the victims who convicted him. Despite the fact that it's about a serial killer, it's more like "The Ring", where its about the tone and little jump scares than it is about killing or gore. In fact, there's very little violence in it at all. But it's still very creepy. The character development is good, and Ashley Scott does an amazing job as a former juror whose life was ruined by the case. The movie is full of twists and turns around every corner which keeps everything entertaining and fast moving. There's a big twist towards the end that catches you off guard and makes the story even more tragic. Mixing the legal and horror genres is something I've never seen before, and the result is really fresh. Cuba Gooding Jr has a small but important role and he ends up playing a much bigger part than the movie hints at early on. Overall, if you like movies like "The Ring" or "The Grudge," I would definitely recommend this movie.