Summer's Blood

Just watched "Summer's Moon" - Non spoiler opinion follows; I wouldn't say this is a typical horror but it certainly was disturbing in parts - but it really depends on your mindset.... I found the 88 minutes pass pretty quickly which is usually a sign that I did enjoy the film. Looking back it had some good moments, kept my interest and had me say to myself a few times..."WTF". Definitely worth watching if you like survival horror/thriller type of genre's.

Having watched "Paranormal Activity" recently which has been hyped up to be one of the scariest films to date, which I don't agree with by the way, this was refreshing and reminded me as a cross between films such as "The Devil's Reject's, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Misery...... As you can see it takes a little from a wide range of movies. 7/10 perhaps! Oh and Ashley Greene is lurvely... ;o)

The rebellious teenager Summer Matthews (Ashley Greene) finds that her mother has hidden that her unknown father is alive and she decides to seek him out. She hitchhikes to the small village called Massey with an old picture of her daddy expecting that someone might identify him. When she arrives in the community, she shoplifts a store but the local sheriff sees and chases her. However the handsome Tom Hoxey (Peter Mooney) helps her to flee and they date during the night. Then Tom brings her home, where he lives with his mother Gaia (Barbara Niven), and they have one night stand. On the next morning, when Summer is ready to go, she is abducted by Tom that discloses that he is not Mr. Nice Guy but the deranged son of a dysfunctional family. Summer is chained in Tom's garden with another "angel", Amber (Dani Kind), whose father Darwin (Peter Michael Dillon) has just left prison and believes that his daughter is missing. When Tom's father Gant (Stephen McNatty) learns about Summer, he heads back home.

"Summer's Blood" is an underrated low-budget slash-movie with a predictable story that has some bold scenes of incest and an unexpected conclusion. I liked the story of a girl that decides to look for her missing father and finds a dysfunctional family of serial-killer. I am impressed how Ms. Barbara Niven is still a very beautiful and charming woman. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Maníacos" ("Maniacs")

Ashley Green (who Tweens and lonely middle-aged women know from Twilight and the rest of us don't know of at all) plays Summer, a rebellious teen trying to find the father that she's never met. Shortly ever finding herself in a small backwoods town, she meets up with a guy whom she goes home with. Only to find herself in over her head the next day when she finds herself chained up in the basement.

Aside from Green herself who doesn't appear to have any acting talent whatsoever, the movie isn't all THAT awful. Yea the marketing of it to attempt to capitalize off the success of the Twilight series is crass, tacky & wholly unneeded, but aside from all the BS there lays a somewhat well-thought out film.

If you want to know why Ashley Greene never went on to bigger things after "Twilight", this film gives you a pretty good idea. In a film peppered with mediocre performances (apart from Peter Mooney & Steven McHattie), she registers pretty low. It's hard to tell sometimes if an actor is limited by their script, but most of the time you'll find signs of promise by actors even then. It's a shame, because she brought quite a charm to the "Twilight" series that is clearly absent here. This film's strongest attributes are its use of music and cinematography. The story is nothing new either.

How weird it can go, I had never heard of Stephen McHattie before. But a few weeks ago I popped into "pontypool" and now I see him playing again in this flick, and he did well and believable again. But I must say that Ashley Greene best known for the Twilight saga did well too. And by hereby the best is said of this flick. The acting is well but it's all so low on gore or the red stuff. I guess that Lee Demarbre (the director) did better with the black comedy "smash cut" then with this here. It could have been so much messier but sadly, most of the killings are off-screen. I even saw the steady-cam reflecting in a car. Just a flick to watch and unfortunately to forget.