Movies
[Review] ‘Dark Summer’ Is a Creepy Little Chiller
Many moons ago back in Jersey, I had a friend who was sentenced to house arrest for breaking into a house and stealing a BB gun. At first he was pretty chill about it all, then after a couple weeks he started to lose it. I came over one time and he was trying to dig a moat around his parent’s house. Once that cabin fever sets in people can go a little crazy.
Case in point: Paul Solet’s Dark Summer tracks the cracking psyche of a tech-savvy kid sentenced to house arrest for cyber-stalking a classmate. As the film starts, parole officer Peter Stomare is explaining to Daniel (Keir Gilchrist) the ins and outs of his sentence. It boils down to him not being allowed to have any unaccompanied minors over the house and for the love of god, stay the hell off the internet, you creep. Once Stormare leaves, Daniel’s friends Abby (Stella Maeve) and Kevin (Maestro Harrell) come right over and give him a laptop with which he can go online undetected. Some kids never learn.
Daniel’s fully prepared to continue cyber-stalking the girl of his dreams, Mona Wilson (Grace Phipps), but he’s a little nervous. As he hesitates, Mona is the one who contacts him via Skype, though for much more nefarious reasons than expressing her true feelings for him. From there, disturbing visions and other ghostly activities begin haunting Daniel. They’re all centered around a hooded specter who follows him in dreams and his waking life, turning the tables on Daniel the convicted stalker.
At first Abby and Kevin are willing to go along with Daniel’s bizarre rants about ghosts and haunted cereal. They do his best to help him until finally shit gets crazy enough that they too are convinced something supernatural is at play. At this point Dark Summer really kicks into gear. Before his friends join him, the film dips into tediousness a little bit. There’s a see-saw pattern of creepy stuff happening and Daniel trying to sway his friends to believe him. Finally they do and the ball really starts rolling. The second half truly excels as a chillingly atmospheric take on Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew investigating a haunted house. There are some great set pieces and moments that made me genuinely jump. More from surprise than actual scares, but still my ass left the seat. It’s effective stuff.
Solet, who wrote and direct the acclaimed pregnancy horror film Grace, is working here from an original script by Mike Le. It’s a slim bastard too, with little room for character backstory or development. For instance, Daniel lives with his mom, who is unaccounted for during the entire film. He must be at least 18 if he’s allowed to be on house arrest alone, right.? There’s not much explained about Daniel’s hacking endeavors online either, just that they were bad enough to slap on an ankle bracelet.
The lack of information helps the story in this case – adding to the spare, creepy atmosphere. There are several moments (particularly during the first half) where Solet attempts to maintain the suspense he’s built up, only to have it crumble under the tediousness. If they tried to beef up the story a bit it may have actually ruined the whole thing. Like I said, things thankfully pick up once Daniel’s joined in force by his two buddies. The film’s got some tricks up its sleeve too and manages to sneak in some real human drama behind the scares. With three solid leads and effective direction, Solet’s Dark Summer is ultimately a fine little creep fest.
Dark Summer is now available on a few VOD formats courtesy of IFC Midnight.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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