Shudder Saturday: Dark Summer (2015)

After being found guilty of stalking a young woman, Daniel (Keir Gilchrist) is sentenced to some time spent under house arrest. He's not allowed access to computer devices or social media either. He breaks the rules immediately, of course, with the help of a couple of good friends. And then the woman he has been stalking gets in touch with him, allows him to witness a horrific event, and things start to get spooky and odd.

There's a moment in Dark Summer when one of the main characters mentions Disturbia, another film that features a main character under house arrest. All that moment does is serve to remind you of how enjoyable Disturbia is, and how you could spend time rewatching that rather than watching this flat and unimaginative chiller.

Written by Mike Le, this is a turgid mess of familiar horror movie tropes. You get the jump scares, most of them in apparent dream sequences (but, hey, there are times when the main character cannot be sure if he was dreaming or not, of course), you get a mystery element to be investigated, and you get a finale that thinks it is being clever with a couple of twists or turns that most will see coming a mile away. Le hasn't written anything else of note, from a quick skim of his filmography, and I can't say that I will ever look forward to any of his future projects, going by his laziness here.

Even the main premise just feels thrown together haphazardly. Okay, this kid needs to be under house arrest. Let's say his mother is away on business so that his friends can immediately visit him. And we can have them able to connect him to the internet from another area. And let's not bother about the practical side of things, the HORROR will carry everyone along just fine.

That would be possible. If there was actual horror, or even thrills, here that worked. None do. Alongside the lazy script, you get direction from Paul Solet that feels genuinely disinterested in anything going on. That's more disappointing than the weak script because Solet has done some good work elsewhere (mainly Grace, the 2009 feature that expanded his 2006 short, and his segment in Tales Of Halloween). I wonder whether he realised at some point that he couldn't do enough with the script to even polish this turd and just decided to finish the thing as painlessly as possible.

Peter Stormare appears in the cast, setting up the house arrest and explaining the rules, and he's the best of the bunch. Stella Maeve also does well, in the role of Abby (a good friend to Daniel), and Maestro Harrell is okay as the other main friend, Kevin. Gilchrist, however, is a weak lead. He's not very likeable and doesn't seem worth rooting for, even as things get more and more dangerous and your perception of certain events is changed. Gracie Gillam (billed as Grace Phipps) is okay as Mona Wilson, the woman who Daniel took a bit too much interest in.

Some may think I am being unduly harsh on this one, a film that simply wants to provide a bit of teen-centric chills and jumps. No. There's no excuse for this level of laziness, and I resent it more than so many other failings that a movie could have.

3/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.

Mubi Monday: It Follows (2014)

It Follows is the popular horror movie written and directed by David Robert Mitchell that updates the classic idea of "Casting The Runes" by turning the curse into a STD. It's a hugely entertaining film, with a few fantastic set-pieces throughout, but also massively flawed, in ways that will be covered shortly.

Maika Monroe plays Jay, a young woman who finds her life thrown into chaos after a sexual encounter with a young man (Jake Weary) who has deliberately chosen to pass on a deadly curse. He immediately informs Jay of the situation: it will appear to her in humanoid form that anyone "uninfected" will be unable to see, it doesn't move quickly but is relentless, she will die if it gets hold of her, the only way to become safe is to pass it along, if Jay is caught and killed then it will go back to pursuing the previous victim. Jay tries to explain everything to some of her family and friends, and it's no surprise that they find it hard to believe until they start to see things that are scary and inexplicable. Can they help Jay to stay safe, and is there a way to break the cycle?

There's a lot to like here, not least of all the lead performance from Monroe. She's very easy to like, which helps to make up for the lack of real personality in the mixed group of supporting players (Keir Gilchrist has an understandable crush on Monroe's character, Olivia Luccardi has a memorable moment in which she ends a thought by breaking wind, and that covers the "highlights" of moments that don't focus on Monroe). The general dialogue is good, pacing is brisk, and there's a good synth soundtrack by Rich "Disasterpeace" Vreeland (despite the overused trick of the volume increasing in a way that signifies an approaching terror, not unlike THAT cue in the John Williams score for Jaws). You also get good special effects, all the more effective for being used quite sparingly, and the strength of that main premise.

Mitchell shows great confidence for his second feature, but his creation of such a great central conceit is as frustrating as it is entertaining and intriguing. Considering the potential here, there are a number of ways in which It Follows lets down viewers. First of all, moments that play things out with the potential to comment on abuse, and particularly sexual abuse, seem to veer close to saying something meaningful and then swerve away at the last minute. It's not that any horror film MUST have more to it than the superficial tension and scares, but Mitchell occasionally shows that he knows the potential of his premise (e.g. the scene in which police are questioning Monroe over her sexual encounter, certain specific incarnations of the curse) and that is what makes it harder to overlook.

It's also hard to view the curse as anything but inevitable, which is another problem. This isn't something you can pass onto someone else and be done with, nor is it something you can surreptitiously return to the person who initially gave it to you. It's a constant thing, as explained in the film, because once you pass it along to someone then that will only give you a temporary reprieve until the next person is killed. That's fine for the duration of the movie, and it ends with a suitable final image, but it's no good once you start to think outside the confines of that runtime.

Those things are easier to forgive, however, than the main thing to take viewers out of the movie, which is a truly dire third act that involves the worst plan to try to capture an evil entity since Ray, Egon, and Peter tried to jump on that ghost in the library at the start of Ghostbusters. In all seriousness, if anyone can explain to me why that was the big plan then please let me know. I understand that the characters soon realise it won't work, as things start to happen, but I don't understand how they reached their flawed conclusion in the first place. Are we just supposed to believe that the character who came up with the idea is a complete idiot, making the others more idiotic for going along with the scheme?

And yet, despite those big mis-steps, the film still works. It's a fantastic mood piece, with that score matched by some fine, creeping, cinematography (by Mike Gioulakis), and manages to keep you suspending disbelief for a good hour or so. And it also gains points for trying something a bit different.

7/10

You can buy It Follows here.
Americans can buy it here.