[Image Courtesy of The Fyzz Facility & Nightshade Entertainment] 

Film Review: We Summon the Darkness

13:00 May 02, 2020
By: David Vicari

It's 1988, and three young women are on a road trip to a metal concert. Alexis (Alexandra Daddario) and Val (Maddie Hasson) are the extroverts, while Beverly (Amy Forsyth) is the rather shy one. At the show, the girls meet three guys (Keean Johnson, Logan Miller, and Austin Swift), who are in a metal garage band together, and afterwards, they all decide to go party at a mansion belonging to Alexis's preacher father (Johnny Knoxville). Soon, it is discovered that one of these groups either the girls or the boys is a murdering trio. It's easy to figure out through hints in the dialogue early on, but I don't want to give it away. And I don't want to give away the reasoning for why they kill, which is kind of amusing.

We Summon the Darkness is a reasonably fun horror film, but it's no instant classic because its third act never cuts loose with crazy carnage. At one point, a small outboard boat motor is presented as a potential weapon, so you're waiting for an unlucky character to be torn up with the propeller, but, frustratingly, that never happens.(Was it planned and the budget ran out?)Then there is the running gag of a character who has a small bladder, so we are expecting a golden shower to be involved in that character's demise. Again, it doesn't happen. However, I do like this movie, and I feel it's the performances that make it work. Now, stop reading if you don't want the identity of the villains spoiled.

Okay.

The performances are good all around, but not only are Daddario and Hasson wickedly funny, they both come across as legitimately sinister.

We Summon the Darkness is streaming on various VOD platforms now.

β˜…β˜…β˜… (out of four)


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