I gave it a 7.5 out of 10
It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.
View MoreA story that's too fascinating to pass by...
This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.
View MoreA young hacker, Daniel (Keir Gilchrist), gets put on house arrest for cyber stalking. The girl he stalked, Mona Wislon (Grace Phipps), takes her own life right before his eyes then the stalker becomes the stalked.Initially I thought the movie was an incredibly lame idea. A girl takes her own life just because some twitterpated teen was stalking her. Was he that malicious in his stalking? As the movie unfolded we got to know a little more about the suicide girl and the reason for her last hurrah.Although it got better the movie was still flawed. Some scenes dragged on too long without adding any benefit and there was too much music with lack of dialog. It was very Ang Lee--almost as if we were supposed to understand the mood through the musical score and facial expressions. It got to the point where I wondered if the film was on a word budget. There were far too many scenes of the scrawny, bare-chested hacker, with no action and no speaking. I completely understand that mood can be set with music alone but there is a way to do it.There were some jump scares and crazy poltergeist stuff. I actually had no problems with that as it fell in line with the flow of the movie and they were done well enough. As I mentioned, the movie does get better. In fact, things begin to make sense until they throw in a loop which actually just creates a plot hole. Don't you hate that? The movie could've wrapped up just fine, made sense, and be a decent movie but the writers outsmarted themselves and left a gaping hole in the plot. What a bummer.
View MoreComing up to the final days of the IMDb boards October Horror Challenge,I decide to look for an easy going title that I could view for the challenge on Netflix.Taking a look at the titles on Netflix,I spotted a movie which had a short and sweet running time,which led to me getting ready to see the sun go down on Summer.The plot:Caught attempting to hack into the online accounts of Mona Wilson whilst his mum is on holiday, Daniel is caught,and quickly put under house arrest.Banned from owning a computer, Daniel gets his friends Abby and Kevin to bring a laptop round,whilst welfare officer Stokes keeps a close eye on Daniel. Logging on,Daniel gets a surprise invite from Wilson for a video chat. Accepting the offer,Daniel is met by the sight of Wilson killing herself with a shotgun.Shaken by the "on air" suicide,Daniel soon discovers to his horror that he has not left Wilson's sight.View on the film:For the screenplay of the film, Mike Le attempts to blend Supernatural Horror with Teen Drama.Whilst Le allows Wilson to hit out with some ghostly shocks,Le is disappointingly unable to build any dramatic tension in the battle between the trio and Wilson,due to keeping the events which led to Daniel and Wilson crossing paths rather vague.Despite the pretty teen cast giving rather flat performances, Peter Stormare gives the title a much needed slice of gristle as Stokes,with Stormare giving Stokes a real snappy nature in catching Daniel out.Covering Daniel's house in reflected mirrors,director Paul Solet & cinematographer Zoran Popovic give the film an elegant, stylised appearance,as sharp shots of light dart across the screen making Wilson's presence known. Backed by a humming Industrial score from Austin Wintory,Solet cleverly uses the mirrors to deliver reflecting tracking shots on the corners of the house,as Daniel tires to stop his Summer from ending.
View MoreDaniel is 17 years old and a self-recognised creep. After hacking into a girl's on-line accounts she commits suicide in front of his eyes. This would be enough to freak anybody out, but it also lands him under house arrest, alone while his parents are away. The conditions include no on-line activity, period. And of course this edict is immediately ignored. He has a couple of friends who hook up with him, but the dead girl, Mona Wilson, returns to haunt him big time. Any suggestion this haunting is all in his head is dispelled by the exorcism the three hold in which supernatural happenings are on the menu. Now what? The two others investigate the apartment where Mona committed suicide, while Daniel stays put and does some research. This film ends very badly, and very suddenly, which is a pity because it promised a lot more, even though it was made with a small cast and an even smaller budget.
View MoreWell, that was a mixed ride. From a decent horror concept, Dark Summer had some excellent sound design, really good cinematography and a perfect soundtrack of songs from Elysian Field On the other hand, the script was nothing more than mediocre. The directing was pretty poor, casting and acting in itself really awful.Dark Summer could just as well have ended up very good, if all those moments had been addressed. Instead, it ended up as somewhat of an annoyance to me personally. In the end, the rating of 5 does not really mean that I found it bland. Sooner the opposite. Some elements were closer to strong 8s, other closer to 2s. It's a pity, really.SMALL SPOILERAnd yeah, Stormare was good, as always. Just very, very wrongly cast, as his presence in itself says that his seemingly insignificant character really plays a somewhat larger part.
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