Dark Summer (2015)

Running Time: 81 minutes

 Release Date: January 9, 2015

Review by: Stacey

 

The early 2000's saw a surge of technology-based horror films (The Ring, Feardotcom, Pulse, etc) that basically told us that unless you were Amish, your ass is going to die the next time you pick up your phone or turn on your computer.  After a lull, Unfriended (my review HERE) came out several months ago and decided that not even social media is safe.  Dark Summer isn't necessarily about technology killing you, but rather the consequences of living in a world obsessed with machines...ok, it's just a ghost story that's techno-centric.

 

Dark Summer follows 17 yr old Daniel (Kier Gilchrist), who is put under house arrest for cyber-stalking his outsider classmate, Mona Wilson (Grace Phipps).  His appointed probation officer, Stokes (Peter Stormare), outfits Daniel with an ankle monitor and some rules: no friendly visits and no internet access whatsoever.  When Daniel's friends, Abby (Stella Maeve) and Kevin (Maestro Harrell), sneak in a laptop for him, he gets an unexpected Skype call from Mona and witnesses something horrific that ensures her revenge is far from over.

 

Six years earlier, director Paul Solet's debut film, Grace, was released and had some similarities but one of them wasn't the screenplay.  Dark Summer had a pretty unremarkable story and didn't deliver enough to impress me.  The film seemed to rely pretty heavily on plot devices used in others- most notably the whole ankle monitor/Disturbia thing, WHICH the filmmaker made sure to have a character remark on so the audience couldn't call them out on it, presumably.  I was also pretty bugged by the fact that Daniel's mom was "away on business" while all of this is going down.  I'm not sure how the legal system works exactly, but I would think that if your teenage son is convicted of cyber-stalking a classmate and put on house arrest, you'd be required to at least keep an eye on him, maybe even notified, no?

 

The horror world probably recognizes Gilchrist from 2014's It Follows, and I can say I'm a fan of the actor, but he definitely didn't come across as much of a likeable character in Dark Summer.  I find it hard to sympathize with someone who has been charged with stalking a woman; just doesn't make me really want to warn the guy of any lurking ghosts.  Stormare's character, Stokes, is this hardass probation officer who seems hellbent on making sure Daniel doesn't cause any kind of shit, but he's also the fucking worst at his job.  Every other scene is Daniel's friends sneaking in and out, bringing him a laptop and internet connection, breaking into houses and sneaking right past the guy! To be honest, I would have rather seen a movie entirely about Daniel's two best friends, Abby and Kevin.

I hadn't even heard of Dark Summer until I saw it on Netflix the other day and maybe there was a reason why.  The short runtime didn't do the film any favors either, especially when the intriguing stuff didn't come around until the very end and seemed like it was hastily put together.  It just ended up being another "haunted house/person" movie with jump scares that were hardly effective.

2/5 ghost teen bj's gone awry

Check out the trailer below and find the movie on Netflix!