Summer's Blood (2009)

Rebellious and foul-mouthed Summer Matthews (Ashley Greene of Twilight fame) goes on a road trip in search of her long lost father. This brings her to a semi remote town, where she meets Tom Hoxey (Peter Mooney). After being rather helpful Summer ends up at Tom's home, where they spend a passionate night together (with Tom's mother listening in intently). The following morning as Summer is ready to leave and continue her venture Tom turns out not to be the nice guy she believed he was. Summer ends up chained in Tom's garden as a precious treasure (together with another women for that matter). Tom's mom, Gaia Hoxey (Barbara Niven), is fully complaint with her son's hobby. Something he got from his dear old papa Gant (Stephen McNatty)...In theory this sounds somewhat promising, even if reeks of a 'House of 1000 corpses" ripoff. But this theory doesn't help to cover up some of the nonsensical segments of the script. The whole psychology of the murderous family is rather dodgy and the garden is never satisfyingly explained. Even worse are the discussions between the unwilling captive and Tom, who don't really make much sense with one key scene, where an already chained-up Summer casually talks about why she went on this little road-trip in the first place (terribly acting by Greene for long parts of the movie). To some extent it almost makes this movie feel like a gory soap-opera. Even the key sequences of the movie feel somewhat livid and don't pack any emotional wallop as would be required for this movie to work.To make matters worse the so-called shock twist is apparent from miles away and about one-third into the movie you already know what's going to happen. Actually if you focus one minute or so on the title of the movie you can guess the plot twist before turning on the movie.On the plus side I think the whole threesome creating the dysfunctional Hoxey family did a bang-up job and they are really a guilty pleasure to watch. Nonetheless it not that brilliant and you really have no need for seconds. Thankfully the whole Hoxey family gets killed off before the end credits, so I don't think we'll be getting a sequel.

Summer (Ashley Greene) has run away from home and is searching for her father who had abandoned her and her mother when she was very young. A policeman catches her red-handed while she is attempting to steal from a store. She escapes from the policeman with the help of stranger, Peter (Tom Hoxey). She hooks up with him for a one-night stand and to her horror, he and his mother happen to be psychopaths. Peter catches young girls off-guard and brings them down to his basement where he has a human garden which is downright horrific. Here he subjects them to inhuman torture if the girls try to escape. Summer tries to escape, but cannot and decides it is better to join them rather than knowingly inflicting harm. During the course of her stay, Peter's father comes home and she finds out he is her father also. But her long awaited fairytale reunion is marred by the cold-hearted father who decides to enjoy her young ripe body, rather than enjoying her presence. Peter is bodily harmed when he decides to intervene. Her father takes her away to a secluded area where there is only a woman, whom he plans to finish off. Can Summer manage to escape her monster of a father? Ashley Greene did a good job in portraying Summer & Peter as the psycho who makes her a pretty flower in his "Human Garden" with skulls & another girl were pretty disturbing. I liked this film more than I would have as it stars Ashley & I'm a fan of her from Twilight. (Now, that will get me some hate..). She's not the two-goody shoes here & its very fascinating. The film when it starts to slightly drag sees the introduction of Peter's father, who is rather entertaining to us audiences. How could any mother do that with her child? That's just gross. This film, though not awesome stands on its own & you will not get bored. The performances are quite realistic. Give it a chance people. Don't overlook it.7/10

My girlfriend wanted to buy me a horror DVD. It was between the Orphan and Summer's moon...unfortunately she decided on Summer's moon, and boy didn't we both regret it that evening! It really is a waste of time. Sure the film was produced in a short amount of time, but so have some classic movies and without huge budgets also. I keep reading people's reviews that say how good the acting was and i had to check i was actually reviewing the same movie. Okay, maybe it wasn't the worst i have ever seen and to be fair Marlon Brando would have been hard pushed to produce any moment of clarity and substance with the script these poor actors and actresses were given! By far one of the poorest, most boring and stupid dialogues produced. The story was regurgitated trash, but not quality trash that has the honesty to realise its a bit crap and so consequently and refreshingly has a little laugh at the films expense too, but just drab nonsense with a typical big busted girl thrown in with half a recognizable name to try and help lift the films credentials and the size of the audience who may like it. Even by looking at the DVD cover art you can tell this is a bad movie. It kind of reminded me of the sort of film someone who really loved Buffy may enjoy, and there is nothing wrong with that but honestly if you like your horror/thrillers films with any element of grittyness, realism, with scary moments, honest fun, moving, violent, gory, blackly funny, unpredictable, with any original thought or seemingly any love for film making such as good photography, dialogue blah, blah, blah then this isn't going to ring your bells! Be scared...be very very scared, at how bored you may become! The movie should give away a free gift if you stay awake long enough to make it to the ending!

This was a movie that was predictable by description, but the journey to get to her meeting her father is interesting. Summer is a tough girl who is on a journey to find her father, who was told that she had been miscarried. The only thing she had to lead her to him was a picture and a card he had sent her mother. She hitches rides to the town that the letter came from. While running from a police officer for shoplifting, she meets a young man that hides her and takes her home. She has a great night with him, but when she gets up in the morning and tries to leave, she ends up in the basement as a victim. As the movie progresses, she gets more liberties in the house and stays locked there with her captor and his mother. The father of the family is on the road all of the time, but once he hears about Summer, he comes home to see the new captive. Then the movie progresses as I would expect it to. It was a movie worth watching. Ashley Greene is not the sweet girl from Twilight, but a tough girl with a will to survive.