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[tab title="Movie Review"]
Pay attention, fools! When a horse – broken, trained, and otherwise tame – has a nasty reaction to a person and then, later, breaks free from its pen and charges the same person, trying to stomp them into the ground, it usually means something. That’s what happens to Julia Trent (Lee Purcell) upon moving in with her aunt Leslie Bryant (Carol Lawrence) and uncle Tom (Jeremy Slate) after the sudden death of her parents. A horse, sensing something completely “off” about her, attacks her.
There’s something wrong with Julia and that damn horse knows it. Soon, when it is far too late, the rest of the household will, too. Welcome to this Summer of Fear, a made-for-TV novel adaptation of a book by Lois Duncan.
At one time, ABC ruled the afternoon airwaves with their commitment to telling tales geared for the pre-pubescent in us all. The After School Special, running from 1972 into the early 1990s, was an anthology of morality plays preaching Golden Rule-like stories designed to encourage us all to better ourselves. They were horribly titled and so soap operatic that few could survive to the very end.
But what if Wes Craven directed one of those hilarious awkward films? What would that look like? Thankfully, with the release of Summer of Fear, we get to see for ourselves and, quite honestly, it is a complete disappointment.
Most of us already know that teenage girls, especially when trapped in the same house, are about as close to evil as you’d ever want to get. They are without souls, compassionless, and nasty toward each other. In Craven’s movie Purcell is one girl and The Exorcist’s Linda Blair is the other. She plays the Bryant’s daughter, Rachel, and – because she and her BFF Carolyn (Fran Drescher) want to expand their duo – she actually welcomes her with open arms.
And then she notices just how weird she is. And why is she traveling with a tooth in a bottle? And what’s with her strange style of dress? Julia is from the Ozarks. And now she lives in California. Thanks to Professor Jarvis (Macdonald Carey), it is suggested that all those people unfortunate enough to live in Missouri and Arkansas are superstitious and believe in backwater myths about witches and goblins and so forth. It’s quite hysterical to hear this overreaching neighbor (and then the family) rattle on about what people do with their free time in the Ozarks.
Their interaction with Julia is only going to confirm all their gossip. She’s a witch! A witch! And, suddenly, the entire cast turns against Blair, who has become a target for Julia’s spells, and her horse as the rest of the house falls for Julia’s charm and her spells, intoxicated by her presence. Even Rachel’s dad starts making advances he shouldn’t toward the teen.
This is the humdrum terrain of Summer of Fear. It becomes obvious rather quickly that this entire thing is a bust, performing more like an after school movie, than anything else. It’s stereotypical of Hollywood’s obliviousness about anyone not living in California, ordinary in its approach to conjuring, and is mostly empty-headed to anyone 12 and under.
Thankfully, Craven did better than this. While the horse attack scenes earn some high marks for its sheer madness in edits, this Summer of Fear is better served forgotten by the autumn months.
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[tab title="Details"]
MPAA Rating: PG-13.
Runtime: 100 mins
Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Glenn M. Benest
Cast: Linda Blair, Lee Purcell, Jeremy Slate
Genre: Horror
Tagline: Tonight, the world premiere of a chilling story of witchcraft, demons and the supernatural!
Memorable Movie Quote: "Well I can't stand a thing about you, and that includes your hair!"
Theatrical Distributor: No theatrical distribution.
Official Site:
Release Date: October 31, 1978
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: October 17, 2017
Synopsis: A teenage girl's life is turned upside down after her cousin moves into her house, and as time goes by, she begins to suspect that she may be a practitioner of witchcraft.
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[tab title="Blu-ray Review"]
Blu-ray Details:
Home Video Distributor: Music Box Films
Available on Blu-ray - October 17, 2017
Screen Formats: 1.33:1
Subtitles: English SDH
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
Discs: Blu-ray Disc; single disc
Region Encoding: Locked to Region A
Courtesy of Doppelganger Films, Music Box Films' horror branch, this 1080p transfer features a 1.36:1 aspect ratio and a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track. Both are delivered, for the most part, clean and clear. Colors are more defined and black levels are solid. There is a dinner table scene that is a bit of a concern, though. The film – with three or four key moments – flickers into a nasty bout of fuzziness that is all too distracting. Suddenly, we are seeing triple of everyone. It goes away once, only to return a couple times later, within seconds of the edits. Weird. Other than that, everything is on the up and up with this made-for-television movie.
Supplements:
Commentary:
-
Craven lives! His commentary about the making of the movie is decent and, as it features co-Executive Producer Max Keller (a huge influence for Craven), a sort-of meeting of the minds.
Special Features:
Linda Blair, in a new interview, talks about the filming of the movie. She talks about the cast and how working with all the talent on the set was a real bonus. An image gallery and the film’s original trailer are both included.
- Exclusive Interview with Linda Blair (13 min)
- Image Gallery
- Original Trailer
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[tab title="Art"]
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