Review – Summer of Blood
Friends Simon, a down-on-his-luck author of pretentious literary works, and Bruce, and small-time actor in schlock films, decide to write a script for a low-budget horror movie. Trouble begins when Cat, Simon’s sister, tries to muscle in on their project. And things are further complicated by the film’s producer Marty, who has his own issues, and Ivory, the manipulative star of the picture. Tensions heighten between them all as fact and fiction begins to blur.
While I liked many of the concepts in this production, much of the execution didn’t quite work for me. The conceit of having the horror movie they are writing play-out on the screen as they were workshopping it was good in concept. But given that this was how they were picturing the movie in their heads it should have been amazing and, instead, I found it rather dull. Likewise, the central story idea was good, but the play didn’t hold my interest all the way through. The acting was mostly fine, though the exaggerated comic tone did make it difficult to connect to any of the characters, who were largely unlikeable anyway. They were all variations on the classic archetypes you find in horror movies: sexually-promiscuous woman, jock, nerd, ‘virgin’ and fool. I wasn’t sure if they were aiming for satire or simple comedy, but they provided no insights into the tropes they used, which is essential for satire, and the funny parts mostly stopped before we got to the halfway point. I liked the brief exploration of the Final Girl trope, but thought they could have mentioned how culturally important it is as a presentation of women. Given the way the play ended, I figure they were just name-dropping the trope without much thought of how that related to their final scene. And Bruce and Simon’s struggle to reconcile artistic integrity with commercial viability definitely should have been a stronger thread throughout.
The main problem I had was with the character of Ivory. I understand that she was meant to be a play on the Hollywood starlet sleeping her way to the top, but female characters that use their sexuality to seduce gullible men into doing their bidding is a trope I personally despise. It presents men as the victims of an evil seductress rather than the willing participants that they are. And this play did nothing to subvert the trope, as the men ended up despising Ivory without taking any ownership of their own actions, and this refusal of responsibility was condoned by the narrative. Similarly, none of the male characters that were sleeping with Ivory had any respect for her. Simon at one point says, “I don’t think conversation is your strong suit unless it is about shopping or the Kardashians,” or something to that effect. Yet Ivory was by no means a stupid character. Obviously it is something that is a personal trigger for me, and others may not feel the same, but I just felt the play could have been more self-reflective on this point.
Summer of Blood had the beginnings of something interesting, but it didn’t fully follow through on the implementation. While not everyone would have the same reactions to certain elements of the play as I did, I still can’t really recommend it.
