We Summon the Darkness (2019)

1988, Idiana.  Three girls attend a heavy metal concert, pick up some guys and take them to one of the girls' parents nice pad to drink, take drugs, play Never Have I Ever, get jiggy ... and carnage ensues.

I will admit I watched wanting next to nothing in terms of mental stimulation, and was really in search of things lurid and sleazy.  But We Summon the Darkness was ... much better than I expected.  So much so that I didn't feel disappointed when it failed to deliver the lur and sleaze.

Instead of a flatlining exploitation flick channeling Last House on the Left, what I got was surprisingly fun comedy.  The cast are good, the direction shows flair (and on one occasion, flare).

"This is not what I meant when I said I wanted things to get hot!"

While no-one will mistake the screenplay for Tolstoy (thank God) it is witty and clever, addressing the (resurgent, if it ever actually went away) conservative Satanic panic nonsense associated with rock music, drinking, drugs, being young and having fun.

So, back to the plot, with a lot of care not avoid spoilers.  Alexis, Val and Bev are en route to a concert.  They encounter some boorish guys acting like asshats and prank them back.

Sweet revenge: Hell hath no fury like a woman startled by having a milkshake bounced off her windscreen

This leads to an entente being established.  Eventually, when the concert ends, they decamp to Alexis's dad swanky mansion.  At this point, I admit I was feeling anxious for the girls.  There had been mention of Satanic murders occurring in the wake of the rock band, and the three unprepossessing young men had let slip a) they had been following the band around from gig to gig, and b) they seemed to know a bit more about the murders than perhaps they should.

I mean, ladies, really?  Is this what you're into?  The barrel called, and it wants its bottom back

So, anyway, I am smart and I made the mistake of thinking this movie was dumb, put two and two together and made five. I imagined some sub-Hostel unpleasantness was going to ensue as the innocent little flowers dimly invite the killers in.  But the film is smarter than I am and heads off somewhere rather different.  

It is not a perfect film at all - the plot contains some gaping holes, no matter how massive the lampshades the screenwriters try to hang on over them, and you ignore a couple of glaring continuity howlers, like the sudden switch from night time to day in the final minutes. But, hey, it is low budget film making.  The important thing isn't that's perfect.  The important thing is it's good enough for you to grin wryly and accept these slips as "Just the sort of shit that happens when you're making a film for nickels and dimes" rather than lampooning the wretched film mercilessly.

The performances are good, the direction nuanced and while the narrative becomes questionable towards the end the script is entertaining and occasionally comes close to making serious points - before retreating to the safety of comic violence.  It might have been a better film if it had gone darker; but none-the-less an entertaining diversion.

Star rating: **