Mindless Movie Monday: Summer's Moon

That does it. I'm moving to Hollywood. I'm heading out west to get hired as a screenwriter, and I'm taking my randomly lucid grandmother (who resides in a nursing home) with me, because I'm sure even she could write a better script that the baloney I just suffered through.
Oh.My.God.

Summer's Moon (2009) is one of the saddest excuses for a movie (let alone horror) that I have ever seen. If I were making a worst movie of 2009 this would be the Mount Everest of that tabulation.

Ashley Greene (of Twilight fame, natch) plays Summer Matthews, a young woman who when we first meet, is hitchhiking along the highway. She pulls a gun on the first dude that picks her up after he propositions her by pulling his zipper down. So right away, we're supposed to think SHE'S TOUGH!!
Gah!

She then shoplifts from a local store and when she almost gets caught, she runs out of the store and meets up with Tom Hoxey (Peter Mooney), who promptly directs her into his car to help her avoid the cops.
Blah, Blah, Blah and they end up at a local dive bar where they are drinking and Tom is drilling her about the reason she's in town.


("You've really never seen Twilight? Well, I'll be damned....")

Turns out Summer's mom is a complete white-trash loser who never told her who her dad was, and told her dad that she miscarried. So Summer has left home (after pulling a gun on her failure of a mother in flashbacks) and has come to the town of Massey because she found a letter Daddy wrote way back when with that return address.



Summer, slut that she apparently is, returns back to Tom's house with him and after finding out he lives with his mom, still has sex with him. Shouldn't that have been a big ding-ding-ding! alert to Tom's creepiness?
Next morning, she sneaks out of bed and tries to leave (after stealing some of the house money of course!) but Tom catches her, tells her she's not going anywhere, and proceeds to restrain her and lock her in the basement. He ties her down in a large raised bed of dirt. Yep, dirt.
Yeah, I know. Huh?

Already, I'm hating this movie. It's just soooo bad. The acting is simply awful. No other word for it. It's almost as though they are all purposely trying to do their worst.

Anyway... in the basement, we find out Tom has what he calls a "garden". And in it, he keeps women. Besides Summer, he also has Amber, who is apparently catatonic from being kept down there for a few months with very little interaction. And besides those two, Tom takes pride in flashing a skull he keeps on a shelf. Another one of his "garden flowers".
Oh yes, I'm serious.


("I didn't think this is what he meant by dirty sex...")

Meanwhile, Tom's mom Gaia (Barbara Niven looking more than a bit like Jenna Elfman) wants Tom to get rid of his garden. (Go figure.) Tom changes her mind first by laying a big open mouth kiss on his mama (!!!), then by flashing her a picture that he found when snooping around in Summer's duffle bag. Oh yes. I'd already figured it out by now.

Summer is now trying her damnedest to suck up to Tom - to make him believe she wants to run away with him and that she loves him. I am convinced, at this point, that a third grader wrote the screenplay for this crapfest.
All this cinematic goodness (sorry the sarcasm is dripping at this point) culminates in the fact that Tom's dad is now on his way home after a call from Gaia. Oh, and dad's name is Gant.
Freakin' Gant! Say what?
And we've seen Gant (Stephen McHattie) in action a few times in the midst of all the other excitement. He is a complete perv, a nasty dude, and most likely a killer. Just great. (He's also the jackass that got his face blown off by Viggo in A History of Violence. Wow, from a Cronenberg flick to this... Sad.)


(Maybe he could have a career as a stand-in for Lance Henriksen?)

Once Daddy gets home, things only get worse. Suddenly Tom doesn't seem so scary any more. He turns into a complete pussy. He concedes to all his father's wishes, and only finally gets mouthy when Gant (!) says he's taking Summer with him and leaving.


(Not even putting the FUN in dysfunctional...)

There is like two seconds of gore, and here it is:


(Hopefully the upholstery is leather...)

I should just give away the ending and spare anyone the actual misfortune of watching this. But I've run out of the desire to speak about it anymore.
Oh, Christ on a cornchip, I can't get those 92 minutes back.

*On a side note: just imagine, if you will, the conversation back at the New Moon/Eclipse sets when the cast is there to rehash what they did with their time off between films. Ashley Greene has to confess about her embarrassing direct-to-DVD debacle, while Anna Kendrick raves on and on about making a movie (Up In The Air) with George Clooney, getting a Golden Globe nomination, and making the cover of the Entertainment Weekly.... gee, how much fun would that be?


(She would be better off stabbing the screenwriter, I'm thinking...)