Day 62 -- Summer's Moon

Released: November 10th, 2009
 
Starring: Ashley Greene, Peter Mooney, Barbara Niven
 
Writer/Director: Sean Hogan and Christine Conradt/Lee Demarbre

Description: A family of serial killers stalk a young woman out to find the father she's never known.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

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If there's one genre that filmakers always feel they can make, its horror. Every film student believes some good editing and creepy music, and they can be the next George A. Romero. But there's a lot more to the horror genre than jump scares and a mysterious story, and those that do it well know the intricacies that are needed for the movie to be entertaining.

"Summer's Moon", well, is pretty awful. It's boring, and the script is bad even if this was a campy horror film. The twist of the story is so telegraphed because she meets no one else in town. They don't even allow enough time for you to consider some other outcome. Summer (Greene) has hitch-hiked to a small town in search of her father, who just happens to be the patriarch of a serial killer family.  Her "brother" Tom (Mooney) inadvertently kidnaps her, and they begin to have a sexual relationship. He ends up dying to save her because despite his psychosis he believes that they are in love.

The incest might be the least repulsive thing about this film. The script, direction, lighting and acting are all worse than the fact that a brother and sister have sex multiple times. There is no pacing whatsoever, and they eliminated an interesting B plot in about 90 seconds. It tries to be creepy, but it comes off as really tiresome. There are interesting ideas, but they poorly executed.

It's movies like this that make you think, someone actually sat in a room, heard this pitch, and decided to commit real money to it. It's infuriating and funny at the same time. Now, I don't expect all horror movies to be "Night of the Living Dead" in terms of quality, but if they're not going to be good then they need to be a good B-movie. A good recent example of being campy good is "Slither", and if you haven't seen this movie yet, stop reading this review and watch it, because that film is much better than anything I have to say about "Summer's Moon".

Ashley Greene, of "Twilight" fame (check out the poster), is the lead in this film, which is what made me curious about it. As I stated in an earlier review, I have a curiosity about seeing actors that have starred in huge phenomenons, and "Twilight" may be the biggest one. Outside of Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, who both appear to be legitimate actors, the rest of the cast are all dreadfully bad, or think they're better than they are. Greene is no different, as she reads her lines so woodenly (new word!) that I don't know if she was taking it seriously.

"Summer's Moon" is a perfect example of a director and a writer trying to imitate films they enjoyed as a kid. Hey, filmakers, stop trying to sample every horror movie you've ever seen and try to create something new. As good as remakes can be, I want to see a new embodiment of evil, and I want it to be a human. Also, it needs to be closer to a thriller than "Saw" because gratuitous violence like that doesn't work for me.  Honestly, I'll take anything, if it means movies like "Summer Moon" are never made.

Rating: 2.5/10 -- Waste of time. Even a sex scene with Ashley Greene didn't help this movie.