Writer/director Peter Sullivan is no stranger to making movies, with an enviable catalogue of low budget TV movies credited to him. He also wrote the story for Absolute Deception, Cuba Gooding Jr’s next movie to be released. Absolute Deception review can be found here. Sullivan is trying his hand at mainstream ‘straight to DVD’ release movies, but he can’t escape his pedigree, as clearly witnessed in Summoned. While this isn’t exactly a bad thing, nor is it the sort of quality that cinema goers and Blu-ray buyers look for when buying a costly ticket or disc because they expect something extra in their films. Something that tells them they have spent their money on a well produced movie.
A convicted serial killer, Evan Lucas (Dylan Vox) is executed but five years after his death all the jurors from his trial start dying in a specific order, and now one of them, Laura is seeing ghosts and creepy messages appear from nowhere. Laura (Ashley Scott) suspects she might be next to die and tries to convince detective Michael Lyons (Bailey Chase) of this but he refuses to believe her. As Laura starts to find clues to why the jurors are being killed off, she begins to learn of a possible cover up of evidence in the trial of the convicted serial killer. Detective Callander (Cuba Gooding Jr) was one of the officers who arrested Lucas, but is he involved in the coverup?
*****
This movie was actually quite respectable for it being low budget horror, and even the production was none too shabby. All the performances were solid with no weak links to lower the tone of it. The direction was of TV movie standard but again, it was still enjoyable but this film isn’t so much a horror as a thriller, with ghosts. There were a couple of ‘jumps’ to get the heart pumping but nothing special. It could have been way better but even so, I quite enjoyed watching it. Ashley Scott was the strongest actor in this production, and handled her role as Laura admirably.
This isn’t winning any awards but it is the sort of flick you can sit through with your family on a Friday night with some popcorn.
Watchable, but an average movie at best.
Grade: C
Review by Ed Blackadder, Lead Entertainment Writer
