Good movie but grossly overrated

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Ashley Green (who Tweens and lonely middle-aged women know from Twilight and the rest of us don't know of at all) plays Summer, a rebellious teen trying to find the father that she's never met. Shortly ever finding herself in a small backwoods town, she meets up with a guy whom she goes home with. Only to find herself in over her head the next day when she finds herself chained up in the basement.Aside from Green herself who doesn't appear to have any acting talent whatsoever, the movie isn't all THAT awful. Yea the marketing of it to attempt to capitalize off the success of the Twilight series is crass, tacky & wholly unneeded, but aside from all the BS there lays a somewhat well-thought out film.

What a strange movie this is! Is it supposed to be some macabre humor? It seemed to take itself much too serious for that. As a thriller it didn't have enough suspense and the storyline just was too thin. And as a downright horror flick it didn't have enough scares or gore. So the net result was a non-distinct mix of everything and nothing. On the positive side I have to say that the acting was over-all fine. Maybe Ashley Greene didn't have to stretch her abilities, since she most of the time walks around as a traumatized zombie. But the parents were great, especially Stephen McHattie as the father is very convincing as an intimidating, self-assured but always good-humored psychopath. And I have to give due credit to Peter Mooney as the weird and mentally deranged son. I thought he did a terrific job, his acting is a perfect mixture of boyish charm, insecurity and innocence with hair-raising bursts of sudden violence and unpredictable behaviour. I saw Peter Mooney in the TV series Falcon Beach and snubbed his performance on IMDb, but now I see that that was due to bad casting and a way too shallow character-definition in the script. Here he's absolutely great! Now back to the negatives. There were all these illogical things that kept amazing me. We're made to believe that the son habitually abducted girls to lock up and torture in the family basement. Why? And why does mother condone this rather quaint behaviour? It never gets explained. He does this for years and years? Didn't the police or anyone come and search for missing persons? Where did they ditch the bodies? What was the purpose of the "garden"? Did I miss some metaphor here? Or are the (numerous?) bodies buried there? The script never gives any clue.Suddenly the evil father shows up (very convenient for the storyline, since he turns out to be exactly the lost father that our heroine is searching for). He doesn't seem to have much affection for either wife or son, in fact he relentlessly and without a single hesitation kills them on the spot to claim the girl for himself. So what kept him from doing the same thing much earlier, I mean, he apparently made these visits frequently, and he must often have found a locked-up girl there that he fancied for himself. Our heroine succeeds in winning some trust with her captors and is eventually allowed to roam freely within the house. Was she so numbed that she couldn't make a go for an escape? She seemed to have had ample opportunities. The ending was an anti-climax, to say the least. When evil daddy leaves the car to chat with an innocent by-standing woman (presumably to inflict some terrible harm on her), our heroine leaves the car and stabs him in the back. The end. Come-on now, couldn't they have done a little bit better than that!?! I know that many horror movies make the death of the villain/monster etc. a bit too elaborate, with countless miraculous and sudden resurrections before the final and most spectacular blow is given. But here everything ends with a dreadful puff: deranged son and mother killed with one shot, father killed with one stab, that's it. I want my money back!!

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.

Just watched "Summer's Blood" and I can say it's worth-watching movie. I'm pleasantly surprised to see Ashley Greene in such a serious role. I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes this style. It's a story that keeps you "awake" to the end, you can't figure out what the heroes are going to do. At short I really, really LOVE this movie and I'll record it on a disk with "Thirteen","Deep Winter" and "Lords of Dogtown". "Summer's blood" is unique movie as i saw it. It has good plot, very good actors and keeps the public in tension. Honestly I downloaded it because of Ashley Greene and I'm definitely glad that I did watched it. It's nice. Love it.