Summer House

Since this is a television movie the subject matter has been toned down. This would have made a good average budget DVD release movie and could have handled the matter a little more accordingly.

That said, the director, Jean-Claude Lord (who directed Visiting Hours (1982) and Second Chances (2010) - reviewed in my blogs), does an amiable job with the story by John Benjamin Martin and Donald David Martin.

This is a ghost story, but due to lack of horror elements and the amount of time it takes to get to the ghostly action, it is more of a drama. This has so much of a TV movie feel to it. The characters are stereotypical; you can see the twists coming; and the characters relationships are pretty standard and have been done a thousand times before. Nevertheless, the actors and the director do make the film watchable... and at times, enjoyable.

Lindsey Price who plays the lead role of Nikki Wickersham gives a passable rendition of a troubled woman who loses her husband, though it's not played as a tear-jerker. Nikki's friend, Margie Mancuso (played by Sadie LeBlanc) and her handyman boyfriend (Niall Matter) are pretty realistic and believable, to a point - this is a TV Movie, after all.

It's the lack of direction the story takes which is a stalling point for the film. It sits uncomfortably between, drama, thriller, mystery, and horror. This makes it a bland affair, had the writers or the director chosen just one path to take this could have been better. It needed to be spookier with more tension. The mysterious elements could have been heightened and extended upon. Because the cause of the haunting is hateful, terrible, and unpleasant it was required to be much darker than portrayed here.

If there's nothing on the telly and hell has frozen over, then you could do worse than watch this film.

What is there to say? It's a predictable ghost story with viewers are miles ahead as far as the plot is concerned. Twists are signalised from a kilometre away and scares are non-existent. So is there anything to redeem this movie? Well... Lindsay Price is sexy and does a bang-up job as a lead in this TV movie. Sure would want to see more of her, as she conveys emotions and really makes her presence felt. Apart from that nothing to really admire, but the movie isn't dumb, is nicely shot and hence deserves a solid 4/10.

You can definitely pass on this movie. Nihil novi. Would definitely benefit from calling in the Ghostbusters.

SECRETS OF THE SUMMER HOUSE\SUMMER HOUSE 2008

BASIC PLOT: An artist, Nikki Wickersham, (Lindsay Price) is recently married, to George Wickersham IV (David Haydn-Jones). He gives her a brooch, a family heirloom, to celebrate her first art show. The next day, George's father dies. The couple goes to Maine for the funeral, and to put his ancestral home up for sale. George's whole attitude about his father, the beautiful house and the island, is perplexing. Nikki learns it's because there's supposed to be a curse on all the Wickersham men. Sure enough, George ends up in a coma, because he decides not to sell the house.

Someone actually went out, and wrote a "ghost story" (with very few ghosts), about present day people getting retribution, because their ancestors owned slaves. FULL STOP!

I am so sick of seeing, reading, and watching this kind of detritus! Hey millennials, you are not smarter than your ancestors! Stop inflicting cancel culture on the rest of us! I'm tired of seeing actors, who's talent I admire, come out and say stupid things because they are afraid (I'm talking to you Viggo Mortenson & Ryan Reynolds).

But back to this rubbish, I swear it was written by a twelve year old. I am the first one to be generous with made-for-tv movies (see my reviews & ratings), but this is beyond the pale. If you are a grown up, or if you're a person that thinks all this white privilege penance, and cancel culture SHOULD BE STOPPED, then definitely, give this a pass.

WHAT WORKS: *This is a nice atmospheric, and the house is a perfect setting.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK: *One minute, Nikki is terrified of the house, the next, she's determined to stay. It would have been more believable if she was swept up in the beauty of the place from the start.

*Nikki actually talks to the tombstone of one of her husband's ancestors, "What is this legacy of secrets that has my husband so troubled Jedidiah?" Are you kidding me? That line is beyond hackneyed.

*This is supposed to be a ghost story, yet the ghost doesn't show up until the movie is more than half over. When you do see the ghost, it is there for 2 seconds and we don't see it again until the end

*This plot is beyond insipid and banal. At our house, we describe this as a 'Barbie storyline'. This means that I used to come up with better plotlines for my Barbies. (The anthropologist is a ghost expert too!)

*I find it offensive that the Asian wife, has to redeem her white husband's non-transgressions, so her half white baby won't be born under the curse.

TRIVIA: *This movie is loosely based on the false legend of the Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana. In that fabrication, the plantation owner, Mr. Woodruff, owned slaves, one of whom was named Chloe. He was supposedly brutal to them (not true, Judge Woodruff never owned slaves), and Chloe took her revenge. The moviemakers even fashioned the ghost to look like a supposed ghost photograph of Chloe, purportedly taken at the plantation.

TO RECOMMEND, OR NOT TO RECOMMEND, THAT IS THE QUESTION: As Made-For-TV movies go, this leaves a lot to be desired. There are so many quality Made-For-TV movies, and vintage Movies-of-the-Week out there, there's no need to waste your time on this one.

CLOSING NOTES: *This is a Made-For-TV movie, please keep that in mind before you watch\rate it. TV movies have a much lower budget, and so your expectations should be adjusted.

*I have no connection to the film, or production in ANY way. I am just an honest viewer, who wishes for more straight forward reviews. Hope I helped you out.

Based on who funded this film (skip to the end and watch the list of logos) you get basically what you expect. It takes an interesting premise, which should be suitable for a horror mystery, and turns it into self-parody. But not intentionally, and that's the problem. The accents weren't believable to me, and seemed to come and go. There were some laugh-out-loud moments, like the various times the local nut tells our heroine to use crystals for answers or protection. That works in many films, but here it was just laughable. Anyway, not to beat a dead horse, but don't waste your time unless you look at it as a MST3K experience.

Acting, script, premise - all D-level. Watching paint dry is time better spent. I'm so sorry I gave this one a try.