Review: We Summon The Darkness – “Enjoy some fun Friday night horror”

Directed by Mark Meyers
Starring Alexandra Daddario, Keean Johnson, Maddie Hasson, Amy Forsyth, Logan Miller, Austin Swift, and Johnny Knoxville

Another collaboration between Signature Entertainment and FrightFest Presents, We Summon the Darkness seems to be channeling some Old School 1980s and 90s teen slasher vibes. We have the good-looking young women and boys, all off the leash for a weekend of fun free of adult supervision, drink, drugs, music and sexual tension, and this all takes place against a background of a spate of serial killings across the state of Indiana, allegedly the work of a Satanic cult.

The media is loving this, of course, and is not just reporting on it, but clearly stoking a folk panic over the killings, and unquestioningly putting up evangelical preacher types who assert it is all the fault of the “demonic” rock music scene as if they were speaking fact. Those of you of a certain age will likely see this as a wry commentary and throwback to some of the media frenzies, the so-called “Satanic Panic” tales the media pushed, which had terrible real-world consequences for local communities caught in them (normally once the hoopla died down and serious investigations took place they were found to be nothing more than rumours and outright lies). Knoxville plays against type as TV evangelist condemning the “corruption” of youth (and like most of these rich media preachers, you just know there are going to be skeletons in his closet).

It’s 1998, and three friends, Alexis (Alexandra Daddario), Valerie (Maddie Hasson), and Beverly (Amy Forsyth), are making a road trip to attend a large heavy metal concert, while snippets from the local news play, condemning the concert and the kids who enjoy the rock scene as part of the problem that has created this alleged Satanic murder spree by leading the youngsters away from Jesus. On the road a pimped out van passes them and one of the boys onboard throws his milkshake out, across their windshield, nearly causing an accident. When they arrive at the concert venue, lo and behold, there is the same van, and it is obvious the occupants are in the back getting high, so Valerie decides on some payback by throwing a lit firecracker through their window.

After a little argument the boys – Mark (Keean Johnson), Kovacs (Logan Miller) and Ivan (Austin Swift) – seem to accept this prank was justified revenge for what they did earlier, and soon the youngsters are bonding over their love of rock, swapping concert-going stories. By the end of the gig they’re enjoying hanging together – three boys, three girls, all into the same music, all free for the weekend, it seems like the perfect opportunity for some fun, and Alexis invites them to join them at her father’s large mansion as he’s away for the weekend.

So far it’s all playing like you might expect an 80s/90s flick to play out – the young women and men are playing with rock music, drugs, booze, flirting with sex, all the usual transgressions that see nubile teens and twentysomethings punished in slashers of that period. But there is something else going on here, not all is as it appears, and much as I would love to talk about it, I can’t because it would blow some spoilers, so I must zip my flapping mouth closed.

Suffice to say that Darkness continues to plough the genre pretty well – I mean that in the good way, while it is using many of the tropes of the genre of the 80s and 90s, it is clearly doing so deliberately and with much love, in a way that I think most horror-hounds will enjoy and approve of. But it also happily subverts some of those generic elements as well, on who is truly the good and the bad, or delighting in playing with gender expectations. Yes, there are moments where some of this seems to be following a well-worn path, but it is doing so with deliberate intentions, partly for the love of the genre, and partly so it can then gleefully mess with some of those expectations. Get the beer out, pop the corn, and enjoy some fun Friday night horror viewing for fans.

We Summon the Darkness is out now from Signature Entertainment and FrightFest Presents on Digital HD.