So a good friend of mine brought “Summoning Sylvia” to my attention because she knows the director personally and I will say, it definitely looked intriguing….but this could’ve also easily turned into a “They/Them” situation and given my hatred for that movie, I certainly didn’t want the same thing to happen here.
Thankfully, it doesn’t.
Never mind the VERY ABRUPT way the movie starts, it’s very quick and to the point with its intentions and execution. At a tight running time of 75 minutes, there’s a playfulness to both the amicable pacing of the film and the tone that accompanies it to where they compliment each other in stereo. Between fluid cinematography and smooth, zestful editing, the presentation is very easy on the eye while brimming with so much personality in the brief time it has. I was honestly surprised at how many times I laughed thanks to the snappy dialogue and quippy banter between the characters; I can get away with saying the music was implemented well and for every ineffective jumpscare, the retro-style visual and architectural aesthetic of the haunted house benefits the overall production design, actively making as much use out the limited spaces they have for what best moves along each scene.
Not to mention, the ensemble they had here worked wonderfully off each other and made their overall dynamic more natural.
Even moreso, Wesley Taylor and Alex Wyse bolsters the already absurdist-macabre circumstances of the story with a direction that welcomes surrealism and theatricality. By walking a fine line between actual camp, slapstick and satire, it combines the supernatural with the flamboyant in a manner to where it fits what you’re seeing. It is very queer but not in the stereotypical up-in-your-face kind of way and that’s also a relief.
This story is part camp, part fish-out-of-water, part haunted house tale trapped within a familiar horror formula that didn’t exactly need to be a horror to be entertaining. As annoying as it is that this was marketed as a horror movie, nothing about this plot is meant to be taken seriously and it embraces its heartfelt and silly roots firmly. Yes, what we get as far as plot is thin on originality but it never gets to the point where you feel like it’s spinning its wheels and delaying itself for the sake of it; there’s still a Point A to Point B, executed in an unconventional manner.
What took me back by surprise was the message present regarding the self-perpetuating cycle of perceived bigotry based on one’s personality or how they look. If there’s one thing this film makes certain of, it’s not to attack people and instead chip away at our tendency to judge a book by its cover; too often, we just allow lies and preconceptions to dictate the situations we’re apart of rather than just be open and honest with one another in conversations and in a day and age where hate crimes are constantly rising, this was a refreshing correction course. And while the horror-mystery of Sylvia herself isn’t anything special, the significance of that mystery gels well with our main characters turmoil as a solid parallel regarding the lengths one will go to for someone they care about.
I was honestly surprised by how much I liked it. Well done, Wes and Alex.
