SOLSTICE couldn't get anymore ordinary if it tried. It's a tale which sees a group of twentysomething friends traveling into the sticks to celebrate the summer solstice. One of the group is tormented by her sister's suicide from years before, so when she begins to experience strange supernatural events at the house they're staying at, she thinks her sister's ghost is trying to communicate.
Of course, it's not her sister's ghost at all, but something far more sinister as a back story is gradually revealed to viewers. Unfortunately SOLSTICE for the most part is uninteresting, because the events that play out are so darned familiar. There are taps that run mud and CGI ghosts hanging about behind people, and it's all well telegraphed so that there's nary a surprising moment. The genre is still stuck with old AMITYVILLE HORROR-type tropes even in this day and age. Even the incessant long-haired ghosts of the J-horror genre are scarier than this.
The real surprise is that BLAIR WITCH director Daniel Myrick would make such an ordinary and forgettable film. There are a few familiar faces here - genre regular Shawn Ashmore (FROZEN), who's always a pleasure; the great R. Lee Ermey in a minor "hillbilly" role; a pre-stardom Amanda Seyfried - but the lamentable scare scenes and the oddly uninvolving denouement combine to make this a bore.
Of course, it's not her sister's ghost at all, but something far more sinister as a back story is gradually revealed to viewers. Unfortunately SOLSTICE for the most part is uninteresting, because the events that play out are so darned familiar. There are taps that run mud and CGI ghosts hanging about behind people, and it's all well telegraphed so that there's nary a surprising moment. The genre is still stuck with old AMITYVILLE HORROR-type tropes even in this day and age. Even the incessant long-haired ghosts of the J-horror genre are scarier than this.
The real surprise is that BLAIR WITCH director Daniel Myrick would make such an ordinary and forgettable film. There are a few familiar faces here - genre regular Shawn Ashmore (FROZEN), who's always a pleasure; the great R. Lee Ermey in a minor "hillbilly" role; a pre-stardom Amanda Seyfried - but the lamentable scare scenes and the oddly uninvolving denouement combine to make this a bore.