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Solstice (film)
Encyclopedia
Solstice is a 2008
American
supernatural horror remake of the Danish film Midsommer
from 2003. It is directed by Daniel Myrick
and co-written by Myrick, Ethan Erwin and Martin Musatov, and starring Hilarie Burton
, Shawn Ashmore
, Amanda Seyfried
, Tyler Hoechlin
, Matt O'Leary
and Elisabeth Harnois
.
in 2005, Myrick announced the imminent shooting of Solstice, and his hope that it would "hark back to elemental horror films like Rosemary's Baby
and The Shining
." The film met with problems due to Hurricane Katrina
and production was postponed. Filming commenced in New Orleans in April, 2006, shooting in the Garden District
and in bayou
s around Louisiana
. Endgame Entertainment developed, produced, and fully financed the film. It was first released to DVD on January 1, 2008 in the US with a commentary track by the director. Throughout 2008 it had worldwide releases in Germany
, Philippines
and Greece
. It had a theatrical release on June 19 in Russia
, and a US television debut on Lifetime Television
on July 26, before release in South Korea
, Netherlands
, Italy
, the United Kingdom
, Iceland
and Mexico
.
The film draws influence from the 2003 Danish
thriller Midsommer
.
) is the film's protagonist. She travels with her friends to a remote lake house during the summer solstice. Once there, she begins to feel a presence she believes to be that of her deceased twin sister, who has recently committed suicide.
Christian (Shawn Ashmore
) is Megan's love interest.
Nick (Tyler Hoechlin
) is a resident of the town near the lake house. He works at a nearby gas station and provides the group with information on voodoo
and other local superstitions.
Zoe (Amanda Seyfried
) is Megan's best friend.
Mark (Matt O'Leary
) is Alicia's boyfriend.
Alicia (Hilarie Burton
) is Mark's girlfriend and a friend of Megan's.
Leonard (R. Lee Ermey
) is a local resident whom the group finds suspicious.
Malin (Jenna Hildebrand) is a local girl who inexplicably went missing around a year earlier.
) has been distraught since her twin sister Sophie (Harnois) committed suicide a few months ago. When it comes time for their annual summer solstice trip to a lake house in the bayous of Louisiana with her friends, Megan reluctantly decides to go. Once the five friends arrive, Megan soon begins to suspect that her dead sister is trying to communicate with her as the solstice—the time when our world and the next are closest—approaches. she sees numerous shadow-like figures, mud runs from all the taps, and Megan is "followed" by Sophie's key chain that she keeps getting rid of. Whenever the shadow figure appears, or Megan has a nightmare, the key chain appears.
Megan, on advice from Nick, goes outside, wraps a white cloth around the key chain and buries it, which should expel the spirit. She goes for a bath, but mud runs from the tap and the spirit appears. After it disappears again, the key chain is lying on the floor.
Megan goes running, but she trips over a hole in the ground, and cracks her nail(which she had foreseen in several nightmares). As she limps back to the road, she meets Leonard again. Inside his van, she sees a hat identical to Sophie's. The next day, the day of the solstice, after recovering from her fall, she walks down to Leonard's house. She finds several large knives, and farming equipment.
Inside the house, she looks around, and finds a young girl's bedroom. On the cabinet, Megan notices a cutting from a newspaper regarding Malin's disappearance. Leonard arrives home, and Megan has to jump out of the girl's window to escape.
Back at the lake house, Nick comes for dinner on the night before the solstice, and Megan tells him about the chain and what she believes is Sophie's ghost. All six of the friends go into the lake in the underwear and Nick calls forth the spirit with wine, which then drags Megan under the water. As her friends try to get her out, she sees more visions. They all get out of the lake afterwards.
Megan realizes that the ghost is not that of Sophie, but Malin's, and she takes Nick to the ruins she encountered earlier, when she fell over. The other friends all follow, including Christian with a gun. Nick and Megan get split up, and Christian almost shoots Nick. Megan then digs up Malin's body, and finds that the key on the key chain is for Malin's bicycle, which was buried with her. They then call the police.
Christian than admits that the year before, when they all came to the lake house, including Sophie, he and Sophie were going for a drive and hit Malin. Not wanting to be arrested, they buried her in the forest. Sophie then committed suicide as she could not bear the guilt. Malin's ghost appears, and Christian runs away towards the road. Malin chases him through the forest, but before she can reach him, he gets to the road and is hit by the police car that had called out. The ending shows Megan at Malin's grave. When Leonard arrives home, he finds Malin's key chain on the porch, put there by Megan. Megan and Nick decide to go to the city together.
, "Coming from a guy whose body of work has been anything but cookie-cutter, Solstice disappoints with its surprising blandness and heavy-handed mediocrity." E-Splatter also offered disappointment at Myrick's work, offering that is was "a bit of a bummer to see the filmmaker behind such a kick-ass movie (The Blair Witch Project
) helming a direct-to-video horror film that's as tame as this. As reviled as it was by some horror fans, "The Blair Witch Project" definitely had an edge. This film absolutely, positively has none.". In contrast, some loyal fans continually rate it favorably with well over 1,500 votes on its IMDb page.
2008 in film
This is a list of all major films made in 2008.-Highest-grossing films:Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top grossing films that were first released in the USA in 2008...
American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
supernatural horror remake of the Danish film Midsommer
Midsommer (film)
-Plot summary:It's study time for the final exams. Everything is going fine for Christian until his sister commits suicide. After exams and graduation Sofie's unexplained suicide takes its toll. Christian is convinced that Sofie was trying to communicate something to him before she took her life....
from 2003. It is directed by Daniel Myrick
Daniel Myrick
Daniel Myrick is an American director most famous for co-directing and writing the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project with Eduardo Sánchez, for which they won the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award.-Life and career:...
and co-written by Myrick, Ethan Erwin and Martin Musatov, and starring Hilarie Burton
Hilarie Burton
Hilarie Ross Burton is an American actress. A former host of MTV's Total Request Live, she portrayed Peyton Sawyer on The CW drama One Tree Hill for six seasons...
, Shawn Ashmore
Shawn Ashmore
Shawn Robert Ashmore is a Canadian film and television actor, perhaps best known for his role as Jake in the Animorphs television series and Iceman in the X-Men films. He is the twin brother of actor Aaron Ashmore.-Early life:...
, Amanda Seyfried
Amanda Seyfried
Amanda Michelle Seyfried is an American actress, singer-songwriter and former child model. She began her career as a child model when she was 11, and at 15 began her career as an actress, starting off with uncredited roles and moving on to recurring roles on As the World Turns and All My...
, Tyler Hoechlin
Tyler Hoechlin
Tyler Lee Hoechlin is an American actor who got his big break starring as Tom Hanks' son in the film Road to Perdition...
, Matt O'Leary
Matt O'Leary
-Life and career:O'Leary was born in Chicago, Illinois. He has two older half-sisters and an older half-brother. O'Leary auditioned for the lead in Home Alone 3. He made his acting debut in the lead role of the 2000 made-for-television film Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire...
and Elisabeth Harnois
Elisabeth Harnois
Elisabeth Rose Harnois is an American television and film actress.-Early life:Harnois was born in Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan, USA, and raised in Los Angeles. She attended St...
.
Production and release
While working on The StrandThe Strand (radio)
The Strand is the BBC World Service's daily arts show. It was launched on Monday 27 October 2008. It is regularly hosted by Harriett Gilbert, Mark Coles, Anna McNamee, and Bidisha.-Format:...
in 2005, Myrick announced the imminent shooting of Solstice, and his hope that it would "hark back to elemental horror films like Rosemary's Baby
Rosemary's Baby
Rosemary's Baby is a 1967 best-selling horror novel by Ira Levin, his second published book. Major elements of the story were inspired by the publicity surrounding the Church of Satan of Anton LaVey which had been founded in 1966.-Plot summary:...
and The Shining
The Shining (film)
The Shining is a 1980 psychological horror film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, co-written with novelist Diane Johnson, and starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, and Danny Lloyd. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. A writer, Jack Torrance, takes a job as an...
." The film met with problems due to Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
and production was postponed. Filming commenced in New Orleans in April, 2006, shooting in the Garden District
Garden District, New Orleans
The Garden District is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Central City/Garden District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: St. Charles Avenue to the north, 1st Street to the east, Magazine Street to the south and Toledano Street to the...
and in bayou
Bayou
A bayou is an American term for a body of water typically found in flat, low-lying areas, and can refer either to an extremely slow-moving stream or river , or to a marshy lake or wetland. The name "bayou" can also refer to creeks that see level changes due to tides and hold brackish water which...
s around Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
. Endgame Entertainment developed, produced, and fully financed the film. It was first released to DVD on January 1, 2008 in the US with a commentary track by the director. Throughout 2008 it had worldwide releases in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
and Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. It had a theatrical release on June 19 in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, and a US television debut on Lifetime Television
Lifetime Television
Lifetime Television, often referred to as Lifetime TV, or most commonly, Lifetime, is an American cable television specialty channel devoted to movies, sitcoms and dramas, all of which are either geared toward women or feature women in lead roles. The cable network is owned by A&E Television Networks...
on July 26, before release in South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
.
The film draws influence from the 2003 Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
thriller Midsommer
Midsommer (film)
-Plot summary:It's study time for the final exams. Everything is going fine for Christian until his sister commits suicide. After exams and graduation Sofie's unexplained suicide takes its toll. Christian is convinced that Sofie was trying to communicate something to him before she took her life....
.
Main characters
Megan (Elisabeth HarnoisElisabeth Harnois
Elisabeth Rose Harnois is an American television and film actress.-Early life:Harnois was born in Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan, USA, and raised in Los Angeles. She attended St...
) is the film's protagonist. She travels with her friends to a remote lake house during the summer solstice. Once there, she begins to feel a presence she believes to be that of her deceased twin sister, who has recently committed suicide.
Christian (Shawn Ashmore
Shawn Ashmore
Shawn Robert Ashmore is a Canadian film and television actor, perhaps best known for his role as Jake in the Animorphs television series and Iceman in the X-Men films. He is the twin brother of actor Aaron Ashmore.-Early life:...
) is Megan's love interest.
Nick (Tyler Hoechlin
Tyler Hoechlin
Tyler Lee Hoechlin is an American actor who got his big break starring as Tom Hanks' son in the film Road to Perdition...
) is a resident of the town near the lake house. He works at a nearby gas station and provides the group with information on voodoo
Louisiana Voodoo
Louisiana Voodoo, also known as New Orleans Voodoo, describes a set of underground religious practices which originated from the traditions of the African diaspora. It is a cultural form of the Afro-American religions which developed within the French, Spanish, and Creole speaking African American...
and other local superstitions.
Zoe (Amanda Seyfried
Amanda Seyfried
Amanda Michelle Seyfried is an American actress, singer-songwriter and former child model. She began her career as a child model when she was 11, and at 15 began her career as an actress, starting off with uncredited roles and moving on to recurring roles on As the World Turns and All My...
) is Megan's best friend.
Mark (Matt O'Leary
Matt O'Leary
-Life and career:O'Leary was born in Chicago, Illinois. He has two older half-sisters and an older half-brother. O'Leary auditioned for the lead in Home Alone 3. He made his acting debut in the lead role of the 2000 made-for-television film Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire...
) is Alicia's boyfriend.
Alicia (Hilarie Burton
Hilarie Burton
Hilarie Ross Burton is an American actress. A former host of MTV's Total Request Live, she portrayed Peyton Sawyer on The CW drama One Tree Hill for six seasons...
) is Mark's girlfriend and a friend of Megan's.
Leonard (R. Lee Ermey
R. Lee Ermey
Ronald Lee Ermey is a retired United States Marine Corps drill instructor and actor.Ermey has often played the roles of authority figures, such as his breakout performance as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket, Mayor Tilman in the Alan Parker film Mississippi Burning, Bill Bowerman in...
) is a local resident whom the group finds suspicious.
Malin (Jenna Hildebrand) is a local girl who inexplicably went missing around a year earlier.
Synopsis
Megan (Elisabeth HarnoisElisabeth Harnois
Elisabeth Rose Harnois is an American television and film actress.-Early life:Harnois was born in Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan, USA, and raised in Los Angeles. She attended St...
) has been distraught since her twin sister Sophie (Harnois) committed suicide a few months ago. When it comes time for their annual summer solstice trip to a lake house in the bayous of Louisiana with her friends, Megan reluctantly decides to go. Once the five friends arrive, Megan soon begins to suspect that her dead sister is trying to communicate with her as the solstice—the time when our world and the next are closest—approaches. she sees numerous shadow-like figures, mud runs from all the taps, and Megan is "followed" by Sophie's key chain that she keeps getting rid of. Whenever the shadow figure appears, or Megan has a nightmare, the key chain appears.
Megan, on advice from Nick, goes outside, wraps a white cloth around the key chain and buries it, which should expel the spirit. She goes for a bath, but mud runs from the tap and the spirit appears. After it disappears again, the key chain is lying on the floor.
Megan goes running, but she trips over a hole in the ground, and cracks her nail(which she had foreseen in several nightmares). As she limps back to the road, she meets Leonard again. Inside his van, she sees a hat identical to Sophie's. The next day, the day of the solstice, after recovering from her fall, she walks down to Leonard's house. She finds several large knives, and farming equipment.
Inside the house, she looks around, and finds a young girl's bedroom. On the cabinet, Megan notices a cutting from a newspaper regarding Malin's disappearance. Leonard arrives home, and Megan has to jump out of the girl's window to escape.
Back at the lake house, Nick comes for dinner on the night before the solstice, and Megan tells him about the chain and what she believes is Sophie's ghost. All six of the friends go into the lake in the underwear and Nick calls forth the spirit with wine, which then drags Megan under the water. As her friends try to get her out, she sees more visions. They all get out of the lake afterwards.
Megan realizes that the ghost is not that of Sophie, but Malin's, and she takes Nick to the ruins she encountered earlier, when she fell over. The other friends all follow, including Christian with a gun. Nick and Megan get split up, and Christian almost shoots Nick. Megan then digs up Malin's body, and finds that the key on the key chain is for Malin's bicycle, which was buried with her. They then call the police.
Christian than admits that the year before, when they all came to the lake house, including Sophie, he and Sophie were going for a drive and hit Malin. Not wanting to be arrested, they buried her in the forest. Sophie then committed suicide as she could not bear the guilt. Malin's ghost appears, and Christian runs away towards the road. Malin chases him through the forest, but before she can reach him, he gets to the road and is hit by the police car that had called out. The ending shows Megan at Malin's grave. When Leonard arrives home, he finds Malin's key chain on the porch, put there by Megan. Megan and Nick decide to go to the city together.
Cast
- Elisabeth HarnoisElisabeth HarnoisElisabeth Rose Harnois is an American television and film actress.-Early life:Harnois was born in Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan, USA, and raised in Los Angeles. She attended St...
as Megan/Sophie - Shawn AshmoreShawn AshmoreShawn Robert Ashmore is a Canadian film and television actor, perhaps best known for his role as Jake in the Animorphs television series and Iceman in the X-Men films. He is the twin brother of actor Aaron Ashmore.-Early life:...
as Christian - Hilarie BurtonHilarie BurtonHilarie Ross Burton is an American actress. A former host of MTV's Total Request Live, she portrayed Peyton Sawyer on The CW drama One Tree Hill for six seasons...
as Alicia - Tyler HoechlinTyler HoechlinTyler Lee Hoechlin is an American actor who got his big break starring as Tom Hanks' son in the film Road to Perdition...
as Nick - Amanda SeyfriedAmanda SeyfriedAmanda Michelle Seyfried is an American actress, singer-songwriter and former child model. She began her career as a child model when she was 11, and at 15 began her career as an actress, starting off with uncredited roles and moving on to recurring roles on As the World Turns and All My...
as Zoe - Matt O'LearyMatt O'Leary-Life and career:O'Leary was born in Chicago, Illinois. He has two older half-sisters and an older half-brother. O'Leary auditioned for the lead in Home Alone 3. He made his acting debut in the lead role of the 2000 made-for-television film Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire...
as Mark - R. Lee ErmeyR. Lee ErmeyRonald Lee Ermey is a retired United States Marine Corps drill instructor and actor.Ermey has often played the roles of authority figures, such as his breakout performance as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket, Mayor Tilman in the Alan Parker film Mississippi Burning, Bill Bowerman in...
as Leonard - Jenna Hildebrand as Malin
- Lisa Arnold as Mrs. Thomas
- David Dahlgren as Mr. Thomas
- Mark Krasnoff as Cop.
Reception
The film received warm but somewhat mixed reviews from its continued worldwide release. Don Sumner of Best Horror Movies felt the production values were comparable with large-budget films and that both the story and performances were believable and genuine, making the film interesting enough to keep the viewer's attention. However, he also felt that the expected scares and suspense might make for an argument that the film was not a horror and was actually a ghostly drama/thriller. Bloody Disgusting felt that the music score was the only highlight in an otherwise boring film, granting that as a remake of the Danish film Midsommer, where the story, overused locale, etc. could not be attributed to Myrick or the other new writers, it is wondered why the choice was made to not make it more interesting, as even the feeling of danger was not present. Dread Central also found the pacing to be lagging when they wrote "The pacing of Solstice drags the viewer to the finish line nearly half asleep". And in referring to director Daniel MyrickDaniel Myrick
Daniel Myrick is an American director most famous for co-directing and writing the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project with Eduardo Sánchez, for which they won the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award.-Life and career:...
, "Coming from a guy whose body of work has been anything but cookie-cutter, Solstice disappoints with its surprising blandness and heavy-handed mediocrity." E-Splatter also offered disappointment at Myrick's work, offering that is was "a bit of a bummer to see the filmmaker behind such a kick-ass movie (The Blair Witch Project
The Blair Witch Project
The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American horror film pieced together from amateur footage. The film was produced by the Haxan Films production company. The film relates the story of three student filmmakers The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American horror film pieced together from amateur...
) helming a direct-to-video horror film that's as tame as this. As reviled as it was by some horror fans, "The Blair Witch Project" definitely had an edge. This film absolutely, positively has none.". In contrast, some loyal fans continually rate it favorably with well over 1,500 votes on its IMDb page.
Additional sources
- Shock Till You Drop
- Cinema Fantastique
- Slasher Pool
- Zelluoid
- Film Reporter
- DVD Verdict
- Worst Previews
External links
- Review: