(Believers, The Blair Witch Project, Curse of the Blair Witch, The Objective, Solstice, The Strand)
Producers:
Sam Raimi and Bob Tapert
Screenplay:
Steve Niles, Stuart Beattie and Brian Nelson
Music:
Brian Reitzell
Cast :
Megan/Sophie: Elisabeth Harnois
Christian: Shawn Ashmore
Zoe: Amanda Seyfried
Mark: Matt O'Leary
Lish: Hilarie Burton
Nick: Tyler Hoechlin
Leonard: R. Lee Ermey
Malin: Jenna Hildebrand
The summer Solstice denotes the longest day of the year,
due to the way the Earth revolves around the sun.
For Megan Thomas (Elisabeth Harnois) it's also going to be the time when the scary shit hits the fan as it's been
six months since her twin sister, Sophie - also played by Elisabeth Harnois, died at the age of 18. Quite how and why she
does not know, but she will find out as the film progresses.
She and her friends go up to Nowell Lake on the eve of every summer solstice for a blow-out booze party with her friends,
Zoe (Amanda Seyfried - currently doing the rounds in Mamma Mia), Mark (Matt O'Leary), Lish (Hilarie
Burton) and Christian (Shawn Ashmore), the latter of whom Sophie used to go out with.
However, this is the first time since that terrible tragedy which happened at the setting, which is also the location of the big family house
that dominates such American slasher/horror flicks, hence she's using this time to pack up all her stuff.
The question is - is her sister trying to contact her from beyond the grave? If that really is the case, then it might explain
the weird things that start happening which echo the bizarre dreams she's been having lately.
Well, to be frank, whatever messages she's getting or thinks she's getting, there's not many thrills to be had here. It's
fairly predictable in places and this kind of thing has been done before - and better. The acting isn't great and one of the
biggest disappointments is the under-use of cinema's greatest shouter, R Lee Ermey (Full Metal Jacket), playing
a creepy farmer. He also appears to be hiding a secret, but does it have a link to Megan's situation? By the end you'll find out,
but you'll be hard-pushed to care.
The film is presented in anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen and does look very good indeed, but it still lacks a certain pizazz -
but then that's reflective of the movie as a whole. The DD5.1 surround sound has chase music that gives your amp a chance
to boom out from all the speakers, but it's fairly predictable stuff.
The director also had a hand in 1999's Blair Witch Project and it shows - nothing happened in that for the majority
of the movie too, and I could never undertsand why it got the attention that it did. It was just an overblown 'Most Haunted'
episode, without the haunting - although it was also without Derek Acorah too, which would be a plus.
Extras-wise, the only addition on this disc is a director's commentary. This sort of thing isn't my bag, and I didn't really
need to hear any more about it, so it's there if you want to find out more about the film.
There are pre-DVD letterboxed trailers for The Tattooist, Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon and Transsiberian
included but these should only be in the extras menu, not before the main DVD menu.
The film contains 12 chapters, so it could certainly do with more as it runs for almost 90 mintes, and I work on a rule of
thumb of one per 5 minutes, the main menu has some subtle animation and is scored with a looped piece of music from the film
and subtitles are available in English for the hearing-impaired.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
