Review: "Her Summer"

By John Oak Dalton / MICROCINEMASCENE.COM / May 13, 2005

A young cop goes missing after the brutal murder of two of his brothers; then, a few years later, he makes a mysterious phone call, setting two youths on a path to unravel the mystery in Bryan Woods’ Her Summer.

But perhaps the most confounding mystery of all is the fact that there appears to be two separate movies at war with each other. In one, we meet sullen youth Greg (Shane Simmons), whose cop father is estranged from his mother, a woman who has walked out for good the night the story opens. His best bud is laid-back Mark (Travis Shepherd), who is mostly concerned with his own relationship problems but eases his pal’s mind with a night of chilling out and relaxing. This half of Her Summer has a very loose, improvisational feel, playing on the chemistry between the characters and a lot of fun “whoa dude”-type dialogue.

In the second part we meet anguished cop Ethan Crowe (Justin Marxen), sent out into the world with only a bulletproof vest and the haircut his momma gave him to combat the forces of the unknown. In an act of somewhat suspect police work, Crowe is left all night alone in the house where his brothers were killed to try to sort out what happened, despite the fact that the house is an active crime scene in an open double-homicide investigation. There Crowe finds cryptic clues that point to a mysterious “Her,” and a possible link to the supernatural realm. Marxen is very good in an almost non-speaking role with an expressive, heart-felt performance. I also thought Marxen was a knockout as a needling, motor-mouthed punk in Scott Beck’s University Heights, reviewed on this site here, a part so polar opposite of this one that it really highlights Marxen’s range.

But Marxen’s solid performance, and some genuine chills, are undercut by telegraphed plot points delivered by Simmons and Shepherd in the oddly-executed framing device, where the two teens talk about life while rifling through Greg’s dad’s casefiles on Crowe’s disappearance. I felt as if writer/director Bryan Woods did not trust his audience, or perhaps himself, to be able to divine the nature of the mystery without this skatepunk Greek chorus, which ultimately does a disservice to his story.

Lots of nice shooting (though perhaps one too many master shots during Simmons’ and Shepherd’s good-natured riffs), and a very polished musical score, add production value. There is a lot of raw talent on display in front of and behind the camera, but a maddeningly-assembled plot, seemingly fusing two disparate short subjects together with a visible caulk bead, subtracts from the whole. However, I am eager to see more from Bluebox Limited as their storytelling skills mature.

Two and a half stars.