Summer of Fear (1978) — Triskaidekafiles

SUMMER OF FEAR

WRITER:

DIRECTOR: Wes Craven

STARRING: Linda Blair as Rachel Bryant
Lee Purcell as Julia Trent
Jeremy Slate as Tom Bryant
Jeff McCracken as Mike Gallagher
Jeff East as Peter Bryant
Carol Lawrence as Leslie Bryant
Macdonald Carey as Professor Jarvis

QUICK CUT: After a girl loses her parents, she tries to adjust to moving halfway across the country, and finding her place amongst her new family.

Rachel - The good daughter, loving girlfriend, and loves horses. Your average teenager who butts head with her parents, but is generally a good person. Comes from a well to do family, wants for nothing, and loves horses.

Julia - Rachel’s cousin, comes off as a tad naive from spending much of her life in the Ozarks. Is a bit awkward and doesn’t quite fit in at first, but has a conniving, manipulative streak, that slowly reveals itself.

Spending my summer of fear on the coast of angst.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! Summer is here, and so is the Summer of Fear, a very early made for tv movie directed by Wes Craven himself. It's pretty clear why I decided to tackle this movie today, so let's get right into things.

The movie opens up with a car careening down the road, and soon going off the side and exploding into fire, as a woman with wild hair and creepy eyes growls menacingly.

Next, we see young Rachel waking up, and hearing a commotion from her parents. She quickly learns her aunt and uncle died in a fiery crash we just saw. Rachel's parents are off to the funeral, and there is also the question of Rachel's cousin, Julia.

The problem is solved by the next scene, as Rachel's parents are returning from Arkansas, and bring Julia with them to live in California.

Rachel offers to let Julia stay in her room. At this point, Ray is very down for having a big sister move in. I'm sure that won't change at all.

It is also quite odd that when they arrive, Rachel rides up on her horse, Sundance, who freaks out at the sight of the new girl. I'm sure they're just excited to meet a new friend!

We spend some time watching Julia settle in, meeting the cast, and just general character building stuff.

Things seem pretty normal, until one night at dinner, Rachel steps away to get something from her room. She knocks over some of Julia's stuff, and finds a container holding a tooth. Oh no, her cousin is the tooth fairy!

Rachel introduces the newbie to all her friends, and takes her out shopping since none of her clothes seem to fit right. They also meet Professor Jarvis, a local expert on the area of the Ozarks Julia is from.

I'm only nursing to get through college, my real dream is to be a nanny someday.

After that, Julia and Rachel's friend Carolyn head home, since the new kid gets weirded out when Jarvis notices she has a lot of physical characteristics in common with Ozark natives.

On the way home, Sundance senses Julia coming near, jumps over his paddock fence, and gallups straight for her.

Rachel's parents discuss what to do about the horse, and everyone seems to be paying attention to the new girl, including Rachel's parents. Most of her concerns throughout the movie are, understandably, dismissed as jealously, and misreading cues.

Following a few grumpy teenage confrontations, Rachel "coincidentally" wakes up one day covered in hives. The doctor tells her to take things easy for the next few days, and oops! Tonight's the school dance, and tomorrow is her big horse show!

On top of all that, Mike ends up taking Julia to the dance, so the tickets don't go to waste, AND Julia has no dress to wear, so she takes Rachel's.

This girl is going all single teen female on Rachel, huh?

Oh I hope she's not sick, I've seen this girl throw up before.

While Julia is trying on the dress, Rachel catches her cousin's lack of reflection in the mirror, but only for a moment. Is it because she's sick, or something more? Take a guess.

Julia heads off to the dance, leaving Rachel to sulk in bed and feel terrible. She wakes up in the middle of the night, and finds a bunch of burnt matches.

Rachel pokes around her room, finds some odd burnt offerings, hair, and a strange effigy that is arguably supposed to be Sundance.

Uhhh, did I accidentally put in Winterbeast?

Fortunately, the hives disappear overnight, and Rachel can at least attend her horse show the next day. Before the big showing, she has it out with Mike and breaks up with him, after hearing all about the great time he had with Julia at the dance. Wow, Mike Gallagher really took a sledge-o-matic to Rachel's heart.

Unfortunately, the horse freaks out mid event, takes a tumble, and breaks its leg. And if you know your horses, you know where this is going.

After a montage of Julia weaseling her way into taking Rachel's place, Ray pays a visit to Professor Jarvis to ask him about witchcraft and controlling people. For a story!

She raids their room for evidence to show Jarvis later, but first Rachel makes the boneheaded decision to confront Julia first.

I've had the devil inside me, I know witchy shit when I see it!

Because soon after that, Professor Jarvis "happens" to have a stroke, and is rushed to the hospital. All while tensions between the girls get higher and higher.

Carolyn sneaks Rachel in to see the professor one night when he's recovering, and he tells her if she needs absolute proof, that a witch cannot be photographed.

So she concocts an excuse for her mom, a photographer, to take some shots of Julia. But oops, things keep getting in the way of getting the film developed, gosh darn!

Oh, and there's also been a subplot of Julia seducing Rachel's dad, so she just wants every little thing, huh?

The next day, Rachel's mom heads out on a trip into the mountains, and both of the girls were supposed to go, but end up staying behind each for their own reasons.

Rachel gets the photos developed, but is instantly attacked when she sees there is no Julia in any of them. She IS a witch! This is a much better test than seeing if she weighs the same as a duck.

As she burns the photos, Rachel confronts her, saying she's not actually Julia, and the penny drops that she is actually the cleaning woman who everyone believed was killed in the original car accident. I have questions, but sure, fine.

Not he biggest most shocking twist, but for a late 70s made for tv movie, I could see it catching people off guard, and you can easily miss some of the clues they drop.

After the girl's scuffle, Rachel manages to get outside the darkroom, and lock Sulia inside. Rachel rushes to save her mother, since she had found evidence of a spell being cast towards the place in the mountains she was heading towards.

Unfortunately, Julia is a witch and magics the door out of the way, and the race is on. Which is good, because there's only like...five minutes left.

I never expected to see a car chase in a supernatural witchy movie from the 70s, but here we are, as Julia tries to run Rachel and Mike off the road. Geeze, this girl has one trick, and she is gonna use it.

They eventually do go off the road, but fortunately manage to not burst into flames. Mile stop the car without any major damage to themselves.

Julia isn't far behind though, and Rachel's mom is also on the road, on her return trip. The witch nearly crashes into her target, but ironically goes off the road herself, and this time the car DOES explode. And I guess since the witch is dead, the spell is broken, and Rachel's mom stops the car before anyone else dies.

The movie is pretty much over, but they do tease Julia's survival as she shows up at a new home, getting a job as a nanny. Who does she think she is, Fran Drescher??

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Quite good looking, for the time period and made for tv nature of it. There’s a lot of production values here, too. Craven always knew how to get his bang for the buck.

Audio: Sounds perfectly average.

Body Count: Not too much here, since this was a made for tv movie, I suppose. The only real death in the body of the movie is Sundance.

1 - Right out the gate, aunt Maude dies during the opening credits in a fiery car crash
2 - And her husband
3 - And the real Julia

Best Corpse: Gonna pass on this one, since they’re all kinda off camera.

Blood Type - N/A: Some all right makeup effects, but this is almost a non entity in this movie.

Sex Appeal: LOL not on 70s primetime broadcast tv. The stuff they DID show was borderline too racy for the time!

Drink Up! Every time Rachel confronts Julia

Movie Review: This is a very solid movie. Especially for something made for tv. A lot of those films are looked down on, often rightly so, but this one is a stand out. Craven has always done average, everyday people very well, and he knows how to direct. He’s a master of horror for a reason. Linda Blair gives a wonderful performance, and really nails the teenage angst. While you might initially think showing Julia as being the force behind her parents’ death right at the start of the movie is a misstep, I do like that there is still a misdirect there, and more to the story. But even then, the reveal is less what the story is about, and it is instead the slowly ratcheting tensions between the two girls. Four out of five wax horse effigies.

Entertainment Value: There’s not much in the way of camp here, and the pace is slower, being a 70s movie, and on a tv budget. Dropping in a car chase makes things lively, and even though this is a slow burn plot, the movie drips enough stuff to keep you entertained, and knowing there’s something strange always going on. Three out of five hive outbreaks.