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WE SUMMON THE DARKNESS
Director: Marc Meyers Cast: Alexandra Daddario, Keean Johnson, Maddie Hasson, Logan Miller, Amy Forsyth, Austin Swift, Allison McAtee, Johnny Knoxville MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:30 Release Date: 4/10/20 (digital & on-demand) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 9, 2020 A satirical riff on the "Satanic panic" of the 1980s, We Summon the Darkness spends a lot of time making us wonder where the story will be heading. When Alan Trezza's screenplay finally gets to the meat of his horror/comedy's story, it rushes through and simplifies the bulk of that story's potential. The opening has three young women—Alexis (Alexandra Daddario), Val (Maddie Hasson), and Beverly (Amy Forsyth)—on the road in Indiana, heading to a heavy metal band's concert. There, they meet Mark (Keean Johnson), Kovacs (Logan Miller), and Ivan (Austin Swift), who have been following the band as a last hurrah before Mark moves to California to pursue a career as a musician. The two groups chat and flirt, and after the show, Alexis invites the guys to join her friends at her father's palatial home. During the extended first act, Trezza drops some subtle—Alexis' ignorance about metal music—and not-so-subtle—newspaper and TV reports about a series of Satanic murders across the Midwest—hints about the eventual narrative destination of this relaxed hangout. There's some tension, especially when the six arrive at the house and play a game that reveals the truth. The punch line, basically, is that the women are indeed part of a murderous cult, although it's a Christian one, which has been staging ritualistic murders across the country to make the public fearful of heavy metal and its supposedly evil influence. It's a funny and subversive gag, for sure, but the revelation is the full extent of the joke (Even the clever casting of Johnny Knoxville as an evangelical preacher is a missed opportunity). The movie becomes little more than a simple game of cat-and-mouse in the big mansion, with the surviving guys trying to evade and outwit their captors. Director Marc Meyers makes some decent use of the space and assorted, everyday or unlikely (such as an outboard motor) items to stage some standoffs/fights. In a way, the isolated, self-contained setting for this comedic thriller serves as a reflection of the filmmakers' treatment of the material. We Summon the Darkness is restrained by the belief that its central premise, its underlying gag, and its core thematic idea are strong enough on their own. The movie finds its comfort zone and neither dares nor risks anything beyond it. Copyright © 2020 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for
bloody violence, pervasive language, some drug use and sexual references)
