Summer's Moon   Starring: Ashley Greene, Barbara Niven, Peter Mooney, Stephen McHattie and Cinthia Burke Lionsgate Home Entertainment RRP: £12.99 LGD94191 Certificate: 18 Available 02 November 2009

After a fierce argument with her alcoholic mother, Summer goes on the road searching for the father she's never known. A clue takes her to a small town called Massey. Tom, the local young handyman, helps her out of a situation and offers her a bed (his!) for the night in the house he shares with his mother. However, when she tries to leave the next morning she is rendered unconscious and chained in the basement as part of Tom's 'human garden'. Another girl has been there for some time, and the room has the skulls of previous victims. Tom's obsession goes back to his childhood when he was locked in the basement for days at a time and found solace by growing plants. Now Summer is his latest flower. If she has any chance of surviving to escape this madhouse she must play along in an attempt to gain his trust. But matters are to become far more complicated. Not only is there a shocking revelation in store for Summer, but Tom's father is coming home - a violent man with no conscience or inhibitions...

Judging by the promotional blurb I was expecting something really special here. You can hardly blame the company, but Lionsgate has sold this DVD release on the weight of Ashley Green (Summer), who is currently enjoying success in the popular chick-flick vampire films Twilight and Twilight: New Moon.

The jacket cover for Summer's Moon depicts the key character with blood around her mouth; a full moon looms large behind her. This blatantly suggests a vampire film, or at the very least a werewolf one. However, this not only isn't a monster movie, it isn't even a standard horror one in the strictest sense. It follows the structure of a psychological thriller, very much in the vein of Mum & Dad.

Nearly every story in existence surrounds someone's attempt at triumph over adversity, so you might feel cheated that the film abruptly comes to an end exactly at the moment Summer gets the upper hand. How is she affected by her ordeal and the amount of death she has experienced? What is left for her next? I guess we'll never know.

5

Ty Power