By the look of the DVD box cover and the fact that Twilight’s Ashley Greene’s image dons the cover, I thought Summer’s Moon was going to be a vampire film. The film’s opening title sequence with a man talking about his life while blood spills upon a pile of tools really made me feel as if I were going into either a torture film a vampire film. As it turns out, the film is much more like a kidnapping and torture film, however the box cover really had me fooled.
Summer’s Moon is the story of a troubled girl named Summer (Ashley Greene) who sets out on a journey to find her estranged father after her deadbeat mother reveals that he is still alive. On her trip across the country, Summer hitches rides with strangers and steals food at local rest stops to survive. One day, the local sheriff catches her stealing food, but she manages to escape with the help of Tom Hoxey (Peter Mooney), a local handyman. He takes her home with him, and Summer finds that he is not the nice guy that he pretends to be. As she pulls a gun on him, Tom’s mother hits Summer on the head with an ashtray, knocking her out. Summer wakes up a prisoner in Tom’s basement, where another girl, Amber, is also being held captive. Summer soon learns that Tom and his mother have a fetish of keeping girls in their basement for their amusement, for sex and for torture.
This is a film where one says to themselves, “The bitch deserves what she gets for just being one of those stupid-ass teenage girls who thinks she owns the world.” I really had no sympathy for Summer. She seems to be just one of those pretty faces that annoys everyone and is a princess troublemaker in high school, someone who is too cool to associate with anyone. That is until you really get to know the character, which is about halfway though the film. You know that she thinks that no one is looking for her, yet there is actually someone who is looking for the other girl, Amber, who is being held with Summer. Her captors, on the other hand, play off like a prequel to Psycho. A mother-son combo with the mother very much in charge. Every girl that her deranged son brings home is no good for him and should be disposed off. The story is reasonably good, but the script is poorly executed. At first, we really can’t relate to the characters because they are so underdeveloped until the halfway through the story.
The performances in the film are mediocre to poor. The script is full of long scenes full of boring dialogue which I felt actually affected the performances badly. Some of the actors seemed as if they either did not want to do the roles or simply did not fit the parts’. The same can be said for the films production value. It is not that it is bad, but it is the basic on-location sets such as local homes and businesses. There is no real gore in the film, but there are some scenes that involve excessive blood. Other than that, the effects are kept to a minimum.
The DVD does not have many features, but does include a behind-the-scenes featurette, and a trailer gallery. The film is featured in widescreen with English 5.1 Dolby digital audio with optional English and Spanish subtitles.
Summer’s Moon is a film that starts slowly, but does get better as it moves along. However, with its lack of production value and mediocre acting, it’s a hard film to really get into. It has a plot similar to that of Psycho, but the film does stand on its own merits and does not share any other similarities other than the mother and son relationship. If you are a fan of such films as Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door and Kiss the Girls, you may find some comparison in the kidnapping element, however the final twist is very unexpected. I kind of enjoyed the way the film concludes, yet what it took to get to that point made me not care for the film as a whole.
– Horror Bob
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
