Seance: The Summoning

At the time of my review there were only 3 others. One reviewer,IMHO, didn't even watch the same movie as me. Another one of the reviewers really skewered the movie but still gave it 3 stars. Lets be honest, both the script and the acting was amateurish. There were no likable characters. Nor were they believable. I have to confess that I didn't see the whole movie, a quarter of the way in I couldn't stand it any more. I didn't want to be one of the reviewers who complain about wasting 2 hours of their life; hey, to those reviewers; why didn't you stop once you found out that the movie was awful? It is obvious what level of production this movie is well within the first 5 minutes. Even if you were intrigued by the plot; the production values are instantly identifiably bad; and no way bad in the good sense. Like a lot of other complaints about the rating system, I really wish it started with zero instead of one. Seems like this review has turned out to be about other things besides the movie itself but there's no sense in wasting any more of one's time than what's already been wasted. Forgive me for ranting.

And what it is is not very good. SEANCE: THE SUMMONING is an entirely cheap seance/possession flick in which a quartet of rather unlikeable characters break into an old morgue to hold a seance for some stupid reason or other. Before long one of their number becomes possessed by the spirit of an ancient demon and death, murder, and madness ensue.

This is a cheap little B-movie with very little to recommend it to the horror fan apart from some cheap gore effects here and there and lots of desperate attempts to be scary. Despite the intensity of pitch, none of this is remotely frightening and indeed it all seems rather familiar and lacklustre, with the usual script lines that sound like they're ripped off from THE EXORCIST and the like. The acting is bog standard, frequently verging into ham territory, and the running time drags out despite the relative shortness of the production. Next, please...

Initially I have to say that having read some review for this movie, I was preparing myself for a boring movie, but still I am not really one to turn off movies unless they are beyond boring, and I did find the plot of the story interesting, so despite the bad reviews, I sat down to watch "Seance".

I don't understand why it got so bad reviews, because I didn't find the movie that bad. Sure it was not a million dollar Hollywood movie, but still it was to the point and it had a good enough story to tell. "Seance" is about four young people going to a city morgue, where one of them works as a security guard, to have a seance (hence the name of the movie) in order to call up the spirit of the dead. Something goes awry and something dark is called forth.

The storyline was compelling and it was good at building up suspense and thrills. Now, don't expect to be scared, because it is not that kind of horror movie. Instead, it is the type of movie that builds on brooding atmosphere and subtle terror.

Personally, I found there was a little too much Christian propaganda in the movie. But hey, dealing with evil presences, I suppose that is what people think they need to turn to.

The people cast for the movie did good enough jobs, two people stand out and carries the movie entirely; that being Bobby Campo (playing Joey) and Nazneen Contractor (playing Eva). Their performances were really great, and came off really believable.

One thing that I didn't understand about the movie was if the entity that was called forth had been waiting 200 years for a mortal vessel to possess, why did it speak 21st century American English and not 19th century American English? If they had kept it that way, the movie would have had so much more credibility. And also, a cool touch to the possession would have been if the possessed individual spoke with those voices simultaneously.

"Seance" is a toned down version of "The Exorcist" and it would appeal to today's audience, and perhaps even instill a curiosity to further explore the market for possession-style movies and return to the 'classics'.

"Seance" is well worth a watch if you like movies that have a brooding atmosphere and builds up subtle terror, instead of being all gory and trying to be as brutal as possible. And speaking of gore, then there were actually some nice enough scenes with blood and injuries in "Seance". Thumbs up for that. And the story takes place in a city morgue, that just adds so much to the setting, and that was really a nice touch.

This film was so hard to sit through, what started out as a decent B movie film got stale very quick with the same scene that lasted for over an hour. It's story involved two girls & two guys, one of which was the security guard at the city morgue. So they decide to have a seance there around all the dead bodies in hopes of contacting spirits, all of which is being done to prove to this Joey character that there is an afterlife of some kind, so Eva a self proclaimed medium was the lead at the table to prove him wrong. So once they get started something goes very wrong, so they decide to try again(genius). Of coarse the second attempt goes even worse than the first and we are stuck looking at a very overdone and lame scenario for the next hour, with people running around acting stupid.

I found it hard to keep my attention on it and the only reason I watched the whole thing is to write a review to let other people know how bad this hole thing was right to the very end. I don't like to bash films or write negative reviews but sometimes it just needs to be done for humanity's sake. I don't recommend watching it, not even for a time killer because it will probably just end up annoying you, and there is certainly enough annoyances in life already.

So four friends go into a mortuary to have a seance. There's the pagan non believer, the atheist, the good girl Christian and the nomdescript friend. It seems like all Christian Horror movies have to include a plot line about abortion and this one does not disappoint. The acting is okay. The script is silly at times. The movie isn't scary or overly graphic. There's no nudity but there is an attempted rape scene. Is it the worst movie I've seen? No. Would I recommend it to anyone else? Also, no.