raikin2003 I just returned from a trip with my wife to Paris. Our friends there were raving about a movie called "Dark Summer". So much so that my wife insisted (She's a huge Connie Nielsen fan). I have to be honest my wife and I don't usually agree on our tastes in movies but the second this film started I was on the edge of my seat. The main star (Jean Hughes Anglade) was a French superstar from what i was told, but his portrayal of the cellist Huxley was sublime. The film opens up with him being interrogated by a detective portrayed by Keith David. (From Platoon, and Something About Mary, the guy is always great) After getting in a car accident he meets Connie Nielsen's character, a nurse named Megan who nurses him back to health. In appreciation, and of course a mutual attraction, he takes her up on dinner and to meet the family. Mia Kirschner played her crazy sister with frightening aplomb. At first the meal and their good times seems a given until he meets the father. (Played by the always- amazing Frank Langella!!) The father is sick and dyeing yet the power he still commanded over his daughters and the shocked Huxley was unmistakable. The father dies and in an incredibly erotic interlude, Huxley makes love to Megan the whole while the sister watches!!! I don't want to give away anymore but the cameos keep poring on and the twists and turns never stop. There are serial killers, country music and beautiful landscapes. The main reason I am writing this review was that after I saw this film I couldn't stop thinking about it. The whole time i was on the plane i kept talking about it and my wife told me about this website and I had to tell the world. I don't know where it is playing or if you can rent it but see this movie!!!

Robert J. Maxwell This has been compared to Hitchcock but I'm not sure why. It isn't that Hitch didn't make a lot of road movies. He made a lot of them, beginning with "The Thirty-Nine Steps." But there was always a gimmick, something towards which the protagonists were heading, and the reason was clear even if the particular MacGuffin was not. This road movie has no goal, not even character development. We get the picture of character in the first few minutes: one peaceful Frenchman and two crazy sisters, an innocent and two broads. (That's meant to be a play on words. See Mark Twain.) The sisters remain pretty much the same throughout. The French musician realizes what's up but feels some vague sense of loyalty (or something) towards these women that keeps him from turning them over. He has the best line in the movie -- "You Americans, and your guns!" The film runs from one episode to the next without adding much to what we already know. Hitch's movies were filled with episodes and set pieces too, but they added up to more than the sum of their parts. The cameos here are interesting but don't change the nature of the film. The cellist and the Gold Dust Twins run into all kinds of creepy characters -- two pick-up artists in a cowboy saloon; a retired judge with a penchant for peeping (naughty!); the pick-up artists redux, this time as rapists/gunmen; the mother, a nice quick portrait by Amy Archer made more impressive by horrible makeup and compulsive use of the f word. What's there isn't badly handled. There's a nice Dakota thunderstorm. When the two gunmen get blasted, one gets it in long shot, with a distant strobe flash and puff of smoke bluish in the headlights. The acting is okay too. The Frogs have this ability to take an actor and make him inhabit a part to such an extent that we forget that he never seems a promising lead -- this guy here, Jean Reno, others. Ordinary faces in extraordinary circumstances. In its structure, if it resembles Hitchcock at all, it's late, kind of tired Hitchcock. "The Birds" maybe, without the Oedipal underpinnings, the incest theme notwithstanding.

CBWriter In a time when most movie plots are derivative and predictable it is nice to be surprised and kept guessing like the thriller "Dark Summer" starring Connie Nielsen. Writer, Director Gregory Marquette kept the pace unpredictable and breathless. Just when you think you know where this movie is going it changes tracks on you and you are caught in the whirlwind of mystery and intrigue. Co-stars Mia Kirshner and Jean Hugues Anglade are powerful and very convincing. It was also a lot of fun when the power cameos made their appearances. Robert Culp, a perennial favorite of mine is absolutely wicked as the disgraced Judge. Ann Archer, who I cannot recall ever taking a role like the one she portrayed in this film, is worthy for a Golden Globe as the alcoholic mother. Other Cameo's like Frank Langella and Keith David are too short to be a satisfying but I give this film a solid recommend for the viewers, like myself, who are tired of the same old formulaic plots of Hollywood's recycling factory.

Linda Chan My girlfriend and I just watched this picture about this French cello teacher who gets into a car wreck and meets these two crazy sisters and go on a wild ride and meet up with a perverted judge, two crazed gunmen and their alchohalic mother. From the second the movie started I knew it was going to be good when it opens with Keith David as one of the detectives. We were disappointed that there wasn't more of him but there was enough. The film really takes you on a roller coaster ride. The women are portrayed really well in this film. Ann Archer was unbelievable as the girl's alchohalic mother. Her acting alone was worth the viewing. (All the actors are terrific but she really stood out) We actually had to rewind and watch her again there was so much in her performance. The film has some slow moments but the photography was stunning, the cameos although too brief and spotty we found ourselves on the edge of our seats the entire time. Don't watch it alone there are a few scenes that will definitely creep you out!!