Waste of time

Let's be realistic.

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

When a group of friends in Wales decide to cut school and hang out in the woods, they meet a drifter who will change their lives in the shocking true story, Summer Scars. Writer/Director Julian Richards claims that this actually happened to him as a child. At 67 minutes long, this is one of the shortest films you will ever see and still it felt like it was too long. What happened was unique and defiantly worthy of a film, but it seems to me like Richards decided to tell the entire truth of what happened in painstaking detail. What this film needed was some fiction thrown in to make the story more interesting and to space out the events of what happened. As for the cast, it was almost completely full of newcomers, some of which were horrible, but others like Darren Evans, showed some real skill and a bright future. The only veteran actor was Kevin Howarth, who played the drifter and he was terrific. The veteran horror actor really showed us in a short period of time, what this guy must have really been like and he was really amazing. It's the performances of Howarth and Evans that make this short, creepy film worth watching. Summer Scars was an interesting story, but jumped around so much and had a hard time finding direction. For long periods of time nothing happens, but when it finally does, it comes at you so quickly that you're just confused. I liked this film, but with the story they had to go with, if they had had a better cast, and spread things out a little more, Summer Scars could have been so much more than it was.

As another reviewer stated, "Summer Scars" is nearly identical in theme and mood to "The Boys Club", a little known but far superior Canadian film from 1997 about a small group of rather tough acting adolescent boys who encounter a stranger, who at first seems very cool to them, earning their admiration, but in reality turns out to be extremely dangerous, and puts them in a situation where they realize they are in way over their heads. The problem with this film is that the stranger's motivation is never explained or fleshed out, so we are left to guess if he is just a psycho-drifter. The running time is less than 70 minutes, so while it moves along, there is not enough time spent on the increasing danger or the climax, which leaves the viewer with a letdown feeling. The performances are mostly good, and the script (often undecipherable due to heavy Welsh accents) is believable. Unfortunately, none of the kids are very likable, although a couple are decent. OK as a rental, but as a DVD to add to your collection, probably not. Rent "The Boys Club" first if you can't decide.

A group of rebellious kids find themselves in over their heads when one of their gang accidentally hits a man with the bike they stole. The man, Peter (Kevin Howarth, The Last Horror Film, Razor Blade Smile) at first seeming friendly to the gang, has more sinister motivations.I found myself engaged with the film up to a point and Howarth brings a fairly good performance, but the kids, as hooligans, aren't really that likable (not to say that the situation they find themselves in isn't tense, it is) But that coupled with an ending that seemed rushed and a tad bit anti-climatic made the film seem less then the sum of it's parts. Sadly this one is a well-intentioned misfire.My Grade: C- DVD Extras: Director's commentary; A 30 minute Making-of feature; Stills gallery; Original trailer for this film; and trailers for "Dante's Inferno", "Hell's Ground", "Pistoleros", & "the Living and the Gead"

Anyone who recalls misspent summers of youth will understand well how a single day can echo down the years. Like the similarly resonant stories of Rob Reiner's Stand by Me, or much of Shane Meadows's work, Summer Scars captures fragile youth at a turning point, with cracks opening up to the darker adult world.Six friends bunk off school to spend the day in the woods. Armed with a few cans of beer and some very inadequate barbecue skills, they're free to do just what 14-year-olds do best: show off, swear, fight and spend the day just hanging out together. The first reel of Julian Richards's low budget drama is spent solely in the company of these six. Like most real kids they're certainly no angels, and might qualify as 'hoodies' in a cruder film.Riding a stolen moped around the bumpy woodland paths, two of the gang collide with a lone adult, Peter (Howarth). They fear the worst, and leg it from the scene, but Peter is unharmed and soon emerges to join the group. Attention turns to this unknown quantity, and the focus of the group shifts. Peter seems to be 'down with the kids'. He's sympathetic, and is soon leading the gang into new scrapes.But Peter can't be pinned down – one minute he's offering life lessons to his young charges, the next he seems more sinister, playing divide and conquer, and easily exploiting tensions by turning friends against one another. As the afternoon wears on, events take worrying turns, and it appears Peter's agenda may be closing in on the gang.This low-budget indie thriller makes all the right moves with an engagingly 'real' cast of youngsters. Never patronising and edgy throughout, it's a heartfelt picture of fragile adolescent faiths.