The Summoning is a horror movie about teenagers getting killed in the woods. There’s not much else to say about this one, it’s a plot you’ve seen before with all of the standard character tropes that go along with it, handled in an completely safe and inoffensive way.  It is by no means a terrible movie, it’s competently edited and the cinematography is about on par with your typical Syfy original movie. There are even moments of decent acting when the characters aren’t forced into these tiny contrived boxes by the script. The Summoning‘s real failing is not that it’s bad, I’ve seen a ton of objectively worse movies I enjoyed more than this one, it’s that it’s boring. Despite the competent production values and some perfectly adequate practical effects that get to shine in those rare moments they have the good sense to avoid the onslaught of distracting CG, it’s just so predictable and unambitious.

The Summoning follows a group of 30-year old college students as they make their way to a barn party out in the woods. Jared (Brian C. Chenworth) is the leader of our band of ill-fated youths and the resident ladies man despite looking like Fred Durst. This takes place in Florida, so maybe that look is still cool around there, I don’t know. Needing a car to get to the party, he enlists chubby comedic foil Drew (Flavio Milicchio) on the condition that Drew can get a shot with one of the two girls Jared has invited along, popular girl Casey (Shanna Mclaughlin) and “smart” girl Shelley (Amy LoCicero). Shelley is an interesting case because the movie clearly wants you to think she’s the smart one, but she talks like a small child that is anxious to share with you everything they just learned. At one point the group hears howling wolves in the distance and Shelley warns them to take caution because she’s heard “wolves hunt in packs like hyenas”. Wolves hunt in packs, huh? Thanks for the hot scoop, Shelley. Rounding out the team is Cam (Jordan Wall) who apparently knows something about cars but not enough to be useful or have any meaningful contribution to the film and Gisele, ( laine Hoxie) who is just vaguely unpleasant.

Of course, on their way out to the woods the engine breaks down in a completely unnecessary CG sequence that zooms past a bunch of gears floating in space to a smoking engine to show us that yes, indeed they are having mechanical trouble.  What follows is a long slog through the forest as they make their way toward a fire in the distance they assume to be the barn party. On their way they discover they aren’t alone in these woods as they’re picked off one by one by the evil inhabitants of the forest. That brings me to the monsters, they’re a bunch of guys in grey hoodies. Sometimes they have goblin-looking CG faces superimposed over their real faces, sometimes they don’t, it seems to kind of fade in and out, some sort of cloaking device I guess. Sometimes they open their mouths and it looks like one of those phone apps where you open your mouth and it gives you a scary face. The kills themselves aren’t particularly imaginative, they mostly just stick to stabbing their victims they knives and sharp objects, though I will give them credit for taking the time to give us some practical effects on the kills, even if the results are mixed. They aren’t very menacing either, seemingly only possessing the power of having sharp fingernails and easily taken out by normal means including getting poked in the eyes. What they are and what they’re trying to do isn’t really revealed until later in the movie, but it turns out they’re satanists, so that should narrow down their motives. Here’s a hint: if this was Family Feud it would be one of the top 3 answers to “what Satanists like to do in their free time” and the name of the movie is The Summoning.

There is no reason this film had to be as dull as it was. The people behind it clearly have some ability to shoot a decent-looking movie, and in the few instances where the script gives them the opportunity to do more than bicker about getting lost or Drew not getting a shot with one of the ladies, the cast shows glimpses of acting talent. The real issue here is conceptual, this movie was doomed from before they first day of filming because the premise is cliched and he characters are not only stereotypical, they are written so flatly that they don’t even manage to rise to caricatures. A movie doesn’t need a $50 million budget or even professional actors to be worth watching, but it does need vision and a reason to exist, and The Summoning simply feels like it exists because the filmmakers  wanted to make a movie rather than having a vision they wanted to communicate. If you’re still in the mood for some inoffensive adult teenager murdering action, you can pick up The Summoning on DVD or streaming on iTunes and Amazon.