Dark Summer

For the first 38 minutes all you get to enjoy is the camera following the character around the house as he senses something. It is like watching something in slow motion and you will understand what I mean when you watch the film.

The characters seem dull and there doesn't seem to be anything in the film to make you sit there and enjoy it. I couldn't even watch through to the ending and stopped it feeling annoyed at spending time watching this film.

I ended up returning to the film as I felt it wouldn't be fair to write a review watching only half of the film. Well, still boring and walked away feeling even more annoyed.

Really, you want a good ghost story, forget this one. Not worth the time.

Hated by some horror geeks, loved by others, it's such a strange flick. Is it really a horror, well, in some ways it does but it's more about supernatural things going on or what's going on in one's mind. So don't think you will see a gory flick or will have jump scenes. What you will get is following the sick person for over 35 minutes. What he can do and what he can't do but towards the end it do offer some scenes that can offer some horror.

Some shots are done in an arty way, have a look to the girl being shot in the pool, done in a really arty way.

I still don't know what to think about it, for me it wasn't that bad after all but once summer is over I will have forgotten this flick...

Gore 0,5/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

I love horror/thriller movies. It isn't an exaggeration to say 90% of what I watch falls into that category. The other 10% is porn.

It takes very little to make me happy when it comes to these smaller independent type movies. It isn't even so much the movie that I enjoy watching. It's the fun of looking for those hidden gems. Sure, it can suck watching a movie that's terrible, but it's worth the risk because you might find that movie that's so good your sack shrivels up like a prune.

So even if the movie is terrible, I still enjoy it because it's all a part of the hunt.

Dark Summer, however, was garbage. Boring, no plot, bad acting. Just crap. I didn't even know the names of the characters. There was no explanation of what was going on or why. There was just a super-dooper scary ghost with a super-dooper scary hoodie. Ooooooooooo....

It was about an hour in when my pupils constricted and my body put me in a coma. When I finally woke up 4 days later I discovered that I had eaten the fingers off my left hand. There is also a large blood stain on the crotch of my pants but I'm to afraid to check what's causing it.

I like slow movies, especially slow horror movies. The old school kind of horrors. Some of the newer ones have actually been quite good (It Follows for example), so I went for this open minded. Well, it really was slow. Even tho there are some intense moments, there are also a lot of slowly lingering scenes so I recommend not watching this when you are tired, I was close to dosing off a few times.

Soundtrack and the sound editing were good. FX were pretty good too. The slow style was somewhat good too, but the overall touch how everything was done didn't quite deliver. This movie lacks style that makes movies like It Follows exceptional. Cinematography was OK, and with more effort into color grading it might've been very good looking movie. Now it falls a bit short.

Acting was OK. Surprisingly Peter Stormare does the worst role here. He kind of has the part that is often played by has-been actors that have been dug up from 80s movies after making years of bad TV series. I don't think Stormare is quite there yet, but he truly sucks here. No one else really shines either, but are passable. Acting was a bit uneven, shuttling between pretentious, natural and "artistic".

Easily forgettable and can't really say I enjoyed it that much.

This movie was well made, entertaining, had a lot of twists and was really unexpected. Much, much better than the 4.3 it currently sits at. The acting was good, the story was good and production values are high. I hope to see more by the team that made this happen. The soundtrack and audio production is particularly strong. The visual effects are well made, especially because they don't seem to involve too much digital CGI. This movie was a nice break from the 'insidious'/'sinister'/'paranormal activity' style movies that have taken over the horror/thriller genre.

Because film crews often post extremely positive reviews (like this) on IMDb, I want to make it clear that I am not involved in the production of this movie in any way, nor is anyone I know.