Summer's Blood

(2009) Summer's Blood PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR

Teen, Summer Mathews (Ashely Green) entering into a small town seeking to reunite with the father she had never met, who she is later befriended by someone by Tom Hoxey (Peter Mooney) who helped her out of a jam. This someone she does know very much then intends to keep her in his home, bound and shackled, eventually exposing eventual dysfunctional of his entire family of actors Barbara Niven and Stephen McHattie.

I do not remember too much about this movie which says a lot about how much I liked this film which maybe could be garbage. In most cases if I give it a rating that low it maybe the result of the bad ending.

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")

Some unadapted teen girl travels to some small town in search for her dad after she fought with her mom who told him that she had aborted the girl. Soon she meets what seems to be a normal young man. But the morning after she finds herself chained in the basement on a bed of dirt. Another half dead girl is sitting nearby and a bunch of skulls. He talks to her kindly, explaining that she's key to his garden and that loves his garden. Meanwhile the father of the other girl is just out of jail and looking for his daughter. As more people disappear things get complicated. But the highlight of the movie purports to be the return of the father of the young man, who isn't a whole lot better than his son.

Note that this is not a horror movie really. It's all about the psychological torture of the girls. The guy spends what seems like hours chatting with the girl trying to make her feel at home. Yet, it's never horrific let alone entertaining to watch a villain talk non-stop with his victims. There is a bit of violence, a tiny bit of blood. What's mostly of a more out-there nature is the theme of this movie, the family relationships, it's all very adult stuff. The language is very filthy throughout the movie. But there's little violence, no gore, no nudity, nothing. It's all very dull.

Very basic thriller film with the usual psychopath who for this film is a whole family and even the kidnapped girl is not exactly normal. Let's start from the fact that the female protagonist doesn't have the faintest idea of how to act and renders all the emotions very badly and in a horrendous way. The plot is then very trivial and obvious and in addition to this it is even inconsistent and not very credible so not only have they built a trivial and obvious plot but they have not even managed to make it continuous and credible. But despite this, the film is not totally to be thrown away because it manages to create an atmosphere of great tension throughout its duration, but it is a pity that it is the only thing that the film can do.

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.