This month’s selection on Amazon’s Vine programme was a bit thin for me: I could choose up to two items from a list of… two items.  One was an 800-page book.  It took about nine years to write and I’m worried it might take me that long to read it, which might prevent me getting more freebies for a while.  The other item was a DVD of a film called Solstice, a remake of a Danish horror film called Midsommer.  Here is what I said about it:

The summer solstice is commonly referred to as the longest day, and that’s what the first hour of this film felt like. If it was not for the fact that the last half hour was exciting and ended with a genuine surprise I would have written the film off completely.

The director is the same chap who did The Blair Witch Project and he obviously likes creepy woods as that is where a lot of the action takes place here.

Its another one of those stories where a group of American teenagers go off to spend some holiday time together in the middle of nowhere, and then spooky things happen. You might think that American teenagers would have seen a few films and decide to avoid the middle of nowhere by now, or to at least leg it back home at the first slightly spooky event – but that would be no fun.

The difference here is that one of the teens lost her twin sister the year before and is returning to the house where she spent summers with her, so the dead twin is very much on her mind, even before she suspects that her sister might be trying to tell her something.

Unfortunately the film didn’t really interest me too much until the pace picked up towards the end. If someone had taken five minutes summarize the situation and then just let me watch the last 30 minutes I would have been happier.

Having said that, and look away now if you don’t want any clues about the ending, it does make a change that this film does not turn into a bloodbath. All too often the formula is that kids go into the woods for a holiday, meet some weird locals or a something supernatural, and get picked off one-by-one, with the only difference between films being the manner of the gory death. With this film there are some moments to make you jump but everyone survives.

I’ve given it three stars for the ending – but only because its not possible to give it two-and-a-half.

Basically, it might pass a bit of time as a rental or on TV, but I really wouldn’t recommend it as a purchase.