Im-not-all-here-myself Overall, I think this movie has been given a bit of a bad rap. Compared to a lot of recent horror films, this one was actually pretty good even with the budget restraints. Daniel has been placed under house arrest for cyberstalking local "weird girl" Mona. The only adult in the film is Daniel's somewhat sympathetic parole officer played by Peter Stormare. Daniel does have 2 friends which visit him daily, help him reconnect with the web and are inadvertently drawn into his unfolding nightmare. After Daniel receives a disturbing Skype from Mona, things turn from boring to surreal and eventually frightening as he realizes that he is being haunted by Mona's spirit. Using technology somewhat out of their capabilities at times, the trio of friends try to figure out what's real, what's simply Daniel's guilt and what just hallucinations. The only real subplot is Annie's unrequited love of Daniel and how it eventually plays out in the end. The primary flaw with the movie is with the script. Everything is just taken for granted that Daniel is placed in a situation where he is trapped and doomed. There had to be a reason why Daniel was "trapped". There had to be a reason why the cast was limited to as few people as possible. There had to be a reason to create a claustrophobic feel. This might have been done better with a better screenplay, but somehow, it was pulled off without too much loss of effect. The movie slows to a crawl in several instances where it is supposed to build tension. In some cases it works. In others, it's merely a ploy to stretch the running time. It's only within the final 20 minutes or so that the trio truly realize what's happening, yet little is actually explained and the viewer is left with far too many questions than answers. I had way too many questions by the time the film ended.BEWARE, HERE BE SPOILERS It becomes obvious why Daniel suddenly became smitten with Mona, yet she did little to reciprocate his obvious attention. Was it her parent's that intervened? The lock on the OUTSIDE of Mona's bedroom door was unusual. Did her parent's know what her "hobby" was? Were they protecting her or were they AFRAID of her? Were THEY ALSO into witchcraft? Did they know what their little darling was up to and file charges against Daniel as a way of protecting HIM? Every part of the "possession" spell as aimed at Daniel, yet WHY would she want to possess him? How could she possibly know that Annie would complete the spell? WHY didn't either of them attempt to actually start a conversation with each other? Mona was obviously stalking Daniel for MUCH longer than he was stalking her based on the evidence in her secret room. It would have been a LOT simpler for her to approach Daniel after her initial love spell than to go to the extreme that she did. I neither expect not want to have a movie explained for me, but just a little more information concerning the above could really have made this a much more creepy movie Dark Summer wasn't a great film. It was a pretty good film that didn't waste my time. There were a couple of major plot holes that were easy to overlook, but I would have liked for the characters to have "fleshed out" a bit more so that they were easier to identify with. In fact, the entire story could have used a little more background color. To sum up, I've seen worse, but I've seen much better.

Leofwine_draca DARK SUMMER is the newest addition to a never-ending wave of dark and dreary teen horror films which go for a dour, downbeat look throughout. This is a particularly bizarre entry in the genre, an odd mix of stalker thriller with ghost story, and none of it is particularly engaging. One of the main problems with the thing is the obtuse nature of the direction, which doesn't exactly make it clear just what's going on.The main character, Daniel, is a creepy stalker currently under house arrest for stalking a pretty young girl. The plot thickens when it transpires that she actively encouraged his attentions, and resorted to magic spells to get him to love her. It gets even muddier from there, with some brief snippets of gore (including a bit inspired by SAW), some CGI ghost stuff, and lots of mumbled dialogue and characters wandering around and acting generally insipid. A tired-looking Peter Stormare (FARGO) is the only recognisable cast member.

DreamBliss I checked the spoiler box but I will still attempt to be as vague as possible. I will start by saying that movie not only suffers from a bad ending, it is unnecessarily bad. Very much like the ending of Jeeper's Creepers where we end up looking through the poor kid's freshly hollowed out head.There are no ghosts here and little of anything scary. IFC midnight has completely, utterly failed. It is all about possession with a twist that nobody cares about. If you have seen any one of the last few thousand possession movies released in the last few decades, movies with trailers that lead you to believe there are ghosts or a haunting involved, then you already know what this one is all about.I will never recommend staying away from a movie unless it is so utterly bad that it has absolutely no redeeming qualities. This movie, I am sorry to say, is one of those movies. Even Jeeper's Creepers had something going for it, making it worth the ride. This one has a few unique things, but ultimately, it is not worth watching at all.You should only watch this if you like possession type movies with excessively bad endings. You have been warned!

Finfrosk86 Oh my god what an annoying movie.Close ups. Close ups. Close ups. Slow camera panning, close up camera panning. So much fudging close up camera panning. Jesus Christ almighty. This is one seriously annoyingly shot movie. Dear director, or whoever decided to have all shots, (except three, as I can remember) being zoomed in close up shots: Having close up shots of the actors, the 'action', the walking, the talking, the everything, does not make it good or interesting. For some shots, OK, but for every single god damn shot? I hope you never make a movie again. Seriously, someone should have punched him square in the mouth and said: You are not a good director, stop it with the close ups!!OK, on to the movie. There is a super skinny silent dude, a dopey eyed chick, and a.. black dude thats, well, he was alright. And there's Peter Stormare, he's kinda cool. There is some kind of plot, but damn it's slow. Slow and boring, and not interesting. There are some scenes that are supposed to be suspenseful and scary, but they are not. It is not scary at all. Not even slightly.And did I mention the close ups? And the camera panning the walls and the ceiling and the floor and the grass and the actors, and the everything ever? And the close ups? And the close ups? Close ups. Close. Ups.Movie is a waste of time. There is not fun here, at all.