GORE IN THE STORE
REVIEWS BY FANS FOR FANS
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

Train
Antichrist
Wrong Turn 3
Coffin Rock
Orphan
Sorority Row
Drag Me to Hell
Staunton Hill
Summer's Moon

 

Directed By Lee Demarbre. Starring Ashley Greene, Peter Mooney, Stephen Mchattie. Canada. Psychological Thriller. 88 Minutes

Alex: 1 Star
Sarah-Jane: 1 Star

Hmmm...where to start? To summarise the convoluted and illogical plot, brought to the screen by Lee Demarbre in a mere 15 days, a young girl (the delightful Ashley Greene, from the series of the moment, Twilight) is abducted by a ridiculously masculine "Orange County" extra lookalike, whilst searching for her estranged father. He locks her in his basement, then sleeps with his remarkably young looking mother and, as far I can tell given the erratic nature of the story, everyone ends up either dead or miserable.

I kid you not - this is one of the worst genre films I've seen in years. Quite how no-one vetoed this abomination before a frame was shot is beyond me. The sad thing is, there are one or two relatively decent performances in here, but even the likes of Brando and De Niro would struggle to deal with this tripe. As a huge horror fan, I’m used to substandard performances, iffy effects and lamentable production values. If a film has a solid story I'll forgive many things, but this commits the cardinal sin of failing to manage a basic narrative structure.

The acting is the best thing in it, with Greene, Niven and Mooney, not to mention Pontypool's McHattie all turning in borderline passable performances, but the script by Sean Hogan renders all this largely irrelevant.

There is negligible gore, and for those Twilight fans hoping to see a little "more", of Ashley Greene, a surprising lack of nudity given the questionable subject matter. When one comes across films this bad, there is usually the visceral element to keep the attention focussed; sadly Summer's Moon doesn't even attempt this cheapest of tricks. The film starts off playing to the Saw/Hostel crowd, then swiftly decides to attempt a entirely unbelievable Stockholm Syndrome twist, followed by a backflip into something resembling The Devil's Rejects.

I kid you not people, I love horror and I love independents. This however, despite being both, is an unmitigated crock of sh*te.

Unusually, wifey agrees...

Summer's Moon aka Summer's Blood or Summer - a film so bad that naming it twice wasn't even enough. Once I realised this was a Canadian film I couldn't shake the South Park anthem "Blame Canada" from my mind.

It is very rare that I struggle to find any merit in a film but this one leaves me flailing wildly. The plot is filled with illogical behaviour and irrelevant characters, whilst its twists are entirely predictable, including the end of the film, which was such an anti-climax I had to sit through the full end credits to make sure it was really over. The lighting is so poor and garish that hot young thing Ashley Greene ends up looking like she has thunder thighs - no mean feat! As for the score, the crimes committed against the beautiful pieces of classical music in the soundtrack will make any musician want to hunt the creators down and force them to watch the film on repeat.

The only vaguely positive point is that the actors do make an effort, although Stephen McHattie has obviously been watching a little too much Prison Break. His performance is lifted directly from Robert Knepper's portrayal of T-Bag, albeit losing much of that character's charisma along the way.

If I had paid to see this film, I would be asking for a refund. Seriously, it's that bad.

Special Features: Having viewed the brief behind the scenes documentary, we were both left feeling rather mean about our review of the film. It's clear that a great deal of effort went into filming this production, but unfortunately, due to the appalling end result, the makers and actors simply come across as deluded. It brings to mind the likes of John Travolta explaining why Battlefield Earth was a masterpiece shortly before the first reviews of that turkey emerged.

Alex & Sarah Chambers.

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