Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

We Summon the Darkness Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 26, 2020

Note: There’s one major plot development in We Summon the Darkness which is probably meant to be a surprise (even if some may feel it isn’t much of one). It really can’t be avoided in any meaningful discussion of the film, however, but that said it might still be considered spoiler material by some, and because that element is unavoidable, I've gone ahead and posted other "substrata" of the story that probably are outright spoilers, so those with phobias about such things are forewarned. Those with any concerns should probably skip the following paragraphs.

Many are no doubt familiar with the old cliché of a “damsel in distress” in horror movies, but what about a dude in distress? Certainly there have been male victims galore in any number of horror outings, but at least some of the time they tend to be amorous partners of some woman who becomes the “ultimate” target after the lusty boyfriend has been summarily dispatched. That said, there have been at least a few films that posited a focal male in the “victim” role, including hit or miss efforts like Eli Roth’s Knock Knock from 2015. We Summon the Darkness initially introduces three young women, Alexis (Alexandria Daddario), Val (Maddie Hasson) and Bev (Amy Forsyth), who are driving to a heavy metal concert in 1980s Indiana (the specificity of the time and place didn't really seem to have any integral necessity to the story, that I could glean, anyway). A discussion liberally spiced with mentions of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, as well as the girls’ general demeanor, suggests that these may be “party hearty” types, and the fact that they both see a newspaper at a convenience mart as well as hear a radio broadcast detailing a string of horrific murders thought to have been perpetrated by a Satanic cult no doubt intentionally raises suspicions that these arguably less than prim characters may indeed become damsels in distress somehow, perhaps due to what seems to be a tendency toward foolhardy behavior.

When the trio of women “meets cute” with three guys at the concert, suspicion of course immediately falls on the males, even if they seem curiously unthreatening. The three guys, Ivan (Austin Swift), Kovacs (Logan Miller) and Mark (Keean Johnson), want the party to continue after a concert by a band called Soldiers of Satan. The men feel like they’ve hit the jackpot when Alex reveals her father’s house is only about a half hour away, and that there is no parental presence there, so it could that night’s party palace.

It’s here that the film makes its arguably pretty predictable “surprise”, while also engaging in a rather precipitous amount of illogic. It of course turns out that it’s the girls who are the threat, and they soon enough have drugged and tied up the three men, preparing to sacrifice them in a ritual designed to look like it’s the work of a Satanic cult, but which, according to Alex anyway, is meant to put the fear of Satan’s “boss” into non-believers, sending them scurrying to the local Christian church for salvation.

Except here’s the illogical part of it all: while it’s not disclosed until later that Alex is actually the daughter of a televangelist (Johnny Knoxville) seen decrying the killings on a television broadcast the clerk at that aforementioned convenience mart is watching, and that this pastor’s congregation as a whole has been taking turns in “faking” Satanic cult murders across a 1980s Indiana, why in heaven’s and/or hell’s name would Alex have brought these victims to her father’s house to kill them, which would seem to be a surefire way to implicate the congregation in the crimes.

In any case, this maybe, maybe not "revelation" occurs at around the half hour mark, leaving the rest of the film to play out as a cat and mouse game between the men and the women, with a few sidebars thrown in since Bev, evidently a newcomer to this particular "church", isn't quite as gonzo about the murder spree as Alex and Val are. We Summon the Darkness delights in various injuries being inflicted, and it makes a stab (again, no pun intended) at some black, even twisted, humor, though it's probably more inconsistent in its comedy leanings than in some of its more straightforward horror depictions of blood being spilled.

There's an obvious subtext in the film about the perceived hypocrisy of the religious right, a group implied here to be spouting "holier than thou" nonsense while also partaking in horrific murders, all in the name of salvation. It's probably too silly really to ever qualify as visceral social critique, but it at least gives this film some of its more biting snark. Performances are completely over the top for the women, but considerably more reserved for the men, which in and of itself is a kind of interesting "twist", in that the females, while the perpetrators of the crimes, are arguably at least as "hysterical" in their own way as any damsel in distress in a good, old fashioned horror movie might be.

Note: My colleague Brian Orndorf probably liked We Summon the Darkness at least a little more than I did. You can read Brian's thoughts here.

We Summon the Darkness Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

We Summon the Darkness is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.38:1. This is another film of recent vintage that rather frustratingly doesn't seem to have much if any technical information about the shoot available online (that I could dredge up, anyway), but I'm assuming this was digitally captured and finished at a 2K DI (as always with my reviews, if anyone can point me to authoritative information to the contrary, private message me and I'll happily post an update here). This is a sharp and well detailed looking presentation for the most part, but quite a bit of it plays out in some rather dark confines, and occasionally a bit of murk can cloud fine detail levels. Both the (relatively brief) concert footage as well as some later material is either lit or graded rather aggressively, and as such even general detail levels can ebb and flow. But in more normal lighting, and especially when midrange framings and close-ups are employed, there's rather abundant detail on display, so much so that some of the wounds that accrue may turn more squeamish stomachs. The palette looks just slightly peach colored a lot of the time, which I'm assuming was a stylistic choice.

We Summon the Darkness Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

We Summon the Darkness features a nicely boisterous Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track that offers good immersion in some of the music, including the raucous Sons of Satan concert, as well as some cheeky source cues culled from the film's 1980s timeframe. While a lot of the film takes place in various rooms in the mansion where most of the carnage unfolds, there's still good use of the side and rear channels to establish spatial relationships. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly throughout this problem free track.

We Summon the Darkness Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director Marc Meyers and Writer Alan Trezza


• Envisioning Darkness (1080p; 16:08) is an okay EPK with the requisite interviews and scenes from the film. This arguably has a bit of spoiler material in it.

We Summon the Darkness Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I think maybe if We Summon the Darkness had somehow been able to delay the "reveal" that happens kind of surprisingly early in the film, there might have been more tension created as a result. The film is still goofy fun a lot of the time, and it offers reasonably well drawn characters and ultimately quite a bit of gore, which is probably what horror fans coming to this enterprise may be in search of. Technical merits are solid for those considering a purchase.