Local film mostly good

By AJ Landman / AUGUSTANA OBSERVER / March 24, 2005

Directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods of Bluebox Limited set out to make a movie blending friendship with suspense. The result was " Her Summer," a murder mystery set in Davenport, IA. In a way their mission was a success: the suspense came through well onscreen. The friendship plot, however, just got in the way.

The movie begins with Ethan Crowe (Justin Marxen) leaving his parents' house on his way to work for the Davenport police force. After discovering the murdered bodies of two of his brothers, Crowe goes insane. He takes the rest of the night off to figure out what just happened. He then disappears for two years without a trace.

The other storyline in the movie explores the friendship of Mark, played by Travis Shepherd, and Greg (Shane Simmons). Greg's father is a police officer and former colleague of Crowe. He has marriage difficulties so longstanding that neither Greg nor his father address the issue. When his father comes home with a box of evidence about the murders and Crowe's disappearance, the boys cannot help but die into the case themselves.

The underlying themes in this movie are friendship and nostalgia. Mark and Greg's friendship is coming apart. The cause of this division is familiar to any young adult: college. Mark has gone off to school at the University of Iowa, while Greg is still in high school but is planning to go to a school in Chicago. This distance is already starting to affect them. Much of the movie seems like a vain attempt to recapture the intimacy of their past.

The parts of the movie no featuring Mark and Greg are truly blood-chilling. Ethan Crowe found himself locked in the same shed in which he found his dead brothers. The shed was dark, and loud noises would come from nowhere, while the shed would shake. Without so much as a line of dialogue, this scene inspired terror. The character of Her, a silent, possibly dead, woman, also had the ability to shock.

The dual storyline lacked the cohesiveness to make it work well. One second Ethan Crowe would be on screen, and the viewer would think that something major was going to happen; the next second, Mark and Greg would be on the screen pulling teenage pranks. The idea of cutting from a story about solving a murder to a vignette about what is a hip way to say Mountain Dew didn't mix well at all. It would be like mixing a teenage sex romp like "American Pie" with Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho."

There are some unanswered questions left when the film finished. For instance, who is Her? Who is the man in black? What does Ethan do for two years alone? How did Ethan suddenly appear at the same park as the two boys? What were the problems between Greg's parents? Why would a responsible police office leave a box of evidence at home with his high-school son and his college friend? The directors didn't seem to know either, since none of these questions were even remotely addressed.

The movie itself worked on the level of homage to the teenage horror films like "The Blair Witch Project." It is difficult to fault such young filmmakers to aspiring to make another "Blair Witch"-style movie, since it was such a critical and financial success. The major difference is that "The Blair Witch Project" was done with sloppy camera work. Both films claim the true-story route taken by many teenaged scream flicks.

Despite its flaws, this movie is a promising step for these two young directors. With a little time, polishing, and movement away from homage, they will likely be able to work toward what should be their ultimate goal: producing movies that are ground-breaking without losing the accessibility that "Her Summer" shows.