Sader Ridge

Jeremy Berg's "The Invoking" tells the story of a young woman out to discover a past she never knew existed when a house is left to her by family she never knew was there. Samantha Harris (Trin Miller) and three of her friends take a trip to Sader Ridge to investigate the property, in the care of someone from Sam's past. "The Invoking" stars Andi Norris, Brandon Anthony, Trin Miller, Carson Holden, D'Angelo Midili, and Josh Truax.

The story in "The Invoking" is a pretty cool, classic adventure turned nightmare and that works for the first half of the film. The characters are emotive and portray some pretty convincing roles. There is some lag when the story arch hits the midway point, and instead of rushing into a thrilling overload of horror and melodrama, things fall a bit flat. The vision goes from one of almost paranormal chills to one that seems patch-worked between missing intent and scattered dramatics. I felt that something got lost in the translation toward the last act of the story. The first part created a great character building connection between me and the characters, the second act created an atmosphere of haunting unease but the last act seemed lost or held back. Plus there is absolutely nothing paranormal, supernatural or invoking in the story save the lead character's, Sam's, recovered memories of a sketchy past. I felt the marketing for this film is very misleading and that is really off-putting.

The special effects and horror elements in this film are almost non- existent. I am not sure if that was intentional or a budget crunching thing but I really expected more from "The Invoking" and was left with a major feeling of disappointment. The few horror moments in the film are lightly braised upon with standard effects tricks that work but considering there were so few moments and most of the film is melodrama I feel Lifetime Movie Network is more this film's audience. The ending was a total miss and made very little since. The meat of the mystery caretaker and Sam's relationship is almost missing from the story. The moments touched upon are not enough to justify how this film ends. So really most of the film is a fail considering the pay-off, after such a suspense build-up, is really not worth the time invested. I say skip "The Invoking".

I saw the trailer and the poster for this movie, and when I saw that reputable Horror websites like Fearnet say "Must-see" and Fangoria say "Chilling", I thought, "this movie must be at least decent"...well I was proved wrong! Here's what this movie ISN'T; thought provoking, original, riveting, engaging, well acted. It was long (even though it was only 80 minutes), boring, mediocre, and just plain bad. The cover/poster closely resembles the hit film 'THE CONJURING' (even the name was changed from 'SADER RIDGE' to 'THE INVOKING' to cash in on its success). But those are the ONLY similarities to that movie, the acting is poor, the story is totally cliché and been done before (in a much better context mind you), and yet again I'm left thinking how did this movie get financed?? People must want to throw money away. And as for the rating being at 5.7 out of 10 (on the date of this review February 19, 2014), in my opinion this does NOT deserve it, more like an average of about 2.5 out of 10 at most! So with that said, I give this rubbish a 1 out of 10. Do not waste your time.

The other 3 reviews must be self-promotion, or from the crew, because without a doubt this is one of the slowest, most boring movies I have ever had the displeasure to sit through. Wooden acting from all - the blonde girl irritating 'acting' beyond belief..At the 48 minute mark I had to check to see how long the movie had to go..only 32 minutes!?! wtf? But NOTHING has happened! Nothing at all of any real substance..Nothing at all. And not even psychologically speaking..Do yourself a favour and pass this one on bye - It's a stinker! I watch Horror movies all the time, and find it hard to see one I haven't seen, so therefore I see a lot of rubbish, but very few make me want to write a bad review. I cannot believe that this piece of rubbish has a vote of 68% Just doesn't deserve anywhere near that..

As other reviewers have mentioned, I was drawn into watching this movie because of the misleading (in my opinion) advertising surrounding the poster and the synopsis. Once the movie started, I was struck by the "amateurish" quality and low-budget feel of the movie. I know that some VERY GOOD movies are amateur and low-budget as they can have compelling story lines and thought-provoking concepts. This movie had none of that. We start the movie next to a radar dome that was given a lot of screen time and conversation that was never mentioned again. The acting was awful. None of the characters were remotely engaging or sympathetic and I couldn't wait for them to disappear. I kept counting down the time and hoping something would happen. Sadly, the ending was confusing and unresolved and I was left feeling that was 80 minutes of my life I will never get back again. The only good thing about this movie (other than it ending) was the cinematography - some of the still shots were amazingly well framed. The movie on a whole was awful. Miss it.

The worst movie I've seen since Bend It Like Beckham. I'd call it a monstrosity but monsters are meant to be scary and anything scary has nothing to do with this garbage. A waist of time and doesn't deserve another breath except to say the one idiot who wrote, directed, and produced it must be a spoiled rich child with too much money and unquestionably the worst possible taste. I don't feel bad saying the actors should never find "acting" work again for associating themselves with such unspeakable nonsense. IMDb is saying I need at least ten lines to post this. Some things are better said with fewer words and now I am forced to ramble and take away from what I definitively said.