Midsummer Nightmares 2: Summers End – 2014 – There’s a lot of cleavage!

Director: Ryan Stacy

Horror

I write this without the benefit of having watched the first one. The reason for this is that I want to treat this as an individual movie rather than a sequel. This might also be the cause for why I don’t totally get it. It seems to me that there’s way to much talk about stuff I don’t really connect to the movies main plot. Correction: of course it’s connected to the main plot, just not in a way that makes a lot on sense.

I can’t really say that it works as slasher. It’s not suspenseful enough, it’s not bloody enough. As a thriller? Well, there’s that thing about suspense again. A thriller more than anything revolves around suspense. The actors are quite bad most of the time but the thing the flick lack is suspense sounds and music. These things can do wondrous things with a mediocre plot.

To be honest, I don’t get this plot. There’s way to much talk about what happened before that’s unknown if you haven’t watched the first movie. I will watch it later though and see if I can connect the dots. The things I get are that some crazy killer from the past returns to kill off a bunch of friends. I don’t know why, there isn’t much motivation to anything in the movie. Why, why, why? That’s always the thing we should get to know one way or another. Except if you’re David Lynch, then you can get away with a totally confusing movie.

It’s hard to separate the acting from the direction. Who’s really to blame? I can’t say for sure but there is at least one saving grace – Christy Faulkner, who does the part of this hot ginger head Amber. She’s by far the most skilled actor in this production. That’s my opinion anyway! Many of the others, not all of them of course, seem to be in the production just to add cleavage values! That’s not necessarily a bad thing saying so makes me feel like a dirty old man. But perhaps that’s just what I am. The thing is that there’s a lot of cleavage but not enough boobs for it to be really sleazy. The attempt is fine to begin with but it does not work all the way.

All in all this is a little to amateurish for me to get off on. It’s a pretty short movie, about 70 minutes – luckily! It feels much longer than that since the pacing is so slow. Why don’t the killer come out and kill some of the characters already. There’s a decent teaser in the beginning of the film, but then there’s all that cleavage… In the end there’s an obvious attempt to surprise us which only add to the confusion. Just make it simple next time!

But did I regret seeing this? Do I want my time back? Not really. It was still worth my time and it should be worth your time too. It may not be top notch but very few movies are and there are after all some intriguing things about it. Did I mention Christy Faulkner?

4/10

Ps. having watched the first instalment of this I can now say I get it! At least I get it more than I did before. My views above haven’t changed, it’s still a confusing movie but if you have seen the first film you much better off. It would facilitate your understanding for this! Ds.

Midsummer Nightmares – 2011 – a realistic slasher

Director: Ryan Stacy

Horror

I did things a bit backwards when it came to this. I watched the sequel first and then this one (don’t ask). It may not have been my smartest move ever but there was a reason for it. And trust me; you don’t have to have seen the sequel to appreciate this! It doesn’t have the best actors and actresses in the world. Actually there is a majority of the latter. On the other hand it’s not unusual in a slasher. It’s often the women that get killed first and a woman who survives the trauma too! It doesn’t have the densest plot either but there’s something to it that gets to me. It seems honest and it doesn’t promise you anything that it can’t deliver.

It’s a bit slow-paced and too talky for my tastes. But at the end of the day it still delivers some great scenes. It may not be a traditional slasher with a killer on rampage going on in most of the movie but it has a killer in a cool mask and there’s some torture in the end too! I wouldn’t say that the killer’s motives are shallow but in the end it seems to be pretty farfetched. It works I guess.

The movie is about 75 minutes. That’s long enough to tell the story and long enough to get bored with the low pace. When we put on a slasher to watch we want some blood and we want it now. Come to think of it, there’s a lack of blood in this. There’s enough terror to be sure but not very much of that red. Maybe it should be considered more of a thriller since all “action” is concentrated to the end sequence. This is often true for the slasher too of course. Just look at the most famous ones, Friday the 13^th and Halloween. There’s suspense right ‘til the very end when all hell breaks loose.

I realize that comparing this amateurish movie to Halloween or even Friday the 13^th is to put it in little too big shoes. But the main principle is the same. In the end everything falls to place even if it is, as I said before, a little farfetched. On the other hand, the famous movies in the genre aren’t exactly realistic either. You could say that this actually wins that completion easy as it’s far more realistic than the famous slasher. Maybe that’s what I like about it? It’s not gory and it’s not scary, but I’ll be damned – it’s realistic!

6/10

You can get it here:

Concept Media Films