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Short summary

While on a summer trip with her friends, Megan begins to feel the presence of Sophie, her twin sister who recently committed suicide.
Six months after the suicide of her twin sister Sofie, Megan still grieves her death and misses her beloved sister. In the Saint John's Eve, Megan travels with her friends Christian, Zoe, Mark and Alicia to her family's house in Nowell Lake, Louisiana, to celebrate the summer solstice. While shopping supplies in a local store, Megan befriends the seller Nick and buys a magazine with an article about communication with the dead in the summer solstice, the time of year when there is the greatest length of daylight. While in her house, Megan is haunted by a spirit that she believes is Sofie trying to communicate with her. In her investigation, she suspects of the weird hick Leonard and while snooping in his house, she finds the picture of the missing girl Malin and unravels a dark secret about the suicide of her sister.

Trailers "Solstice (2008)"

Many of the crew members were living in tents because of Hurricane Katrina's devastation of Louisiana shortly before this movie was shot.

Following Hurricane Katrina, financier Endgame Entertainment considered moving the production to Florida, Georgia or Texas but decided to wait, recast the film and make the movie as planned in Louisiana.

Shot in twenty-five days.

Elisabeth Harnois was the last actress to audition for the role of Megan.

All the party flashback scenes were shot in a single night.

One of the first films to be produced in and around New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

The scene with Megan burying the key chain in the backyard was filmed in only one hour.

The plot is originally from a Danish movie called "Midsommer" (2003). There's only a few changes in the plot.

Elizabeth Harnois played another set of twins on Criminal Minds.

Danielle Panabaker was originally cast, but forced to drop out due to other commitments; 'Elisabeth Harnois' then stepped in to replace her.

Elisabeth Harnois and Hilarie Burton were both in one tree hill and again here on Solstice 2

Shawn Ashmore and Matt O'Leary would later star together in the 2010 horror remake of Mother's Day. As in this film Shawn would play a character who comes to a violent end.

User reviews


  • comment
    • Author: Cherry The Countess
    The plot is almost like that of What Lies Beneath, but played amongst teenagers. Very well made, the acting is authentic, characters are diverse and the plot doesn't give in till the end. The camera work and editing is very smooth, and not overdone, the sound effects as well. All in all you would enjoy this movie and worth your money.

    The down side for those thrill seekers and horror fans, is there is zero suspense, and no jolts, not even with the sound effects. It's more on the drama side. The Sixth Sense is far more scarier than this.

    And for those who likes skins, well, although all of the actors and actress are very good looking there is no part in the movie that could turn you on, RATED PG!
  • comment
    • Author: Beardana
    Six months after the suicide of her twin sister Sofie (Elisabeth Harnois), Megan (Elisabeth Harnois) still grieves her death and misses her beloved sister. In the Saint John's Eve, Megan travels with her friends Christian (Shawn Ashmore), Zoe (Amanda Seyfried), Mark (Matt O'Leary) and Alicia (Hilarie Burton) to her family's house in Nowell Lake, Louisiana, to celebrate the summer solstice. While shopping supplies in a local store, Megan befriends the seller Nick (Tyler Hoechlin) and buys a magazine with an article about communication with the dead in the summer solstice, the time of year when there is the greatest length of daylight. While in her house, Megan is haunted by a spirit that she believes is Sofie trying to communicate with her. In her investigation, she suspects of the weird hick Leonard (R. Lee Ermey) and while snooping in his house, she finds the picture of the missing girl Malin (Jenna Hildebrand) and unravels a dark secret about the suicide of her sister.

    The low-budget "Solstice" was a great surprise with a consistent story, solid screenplay and good acting. The original story startles in many moments without gore, and the young team of gorgeous actresses and handsome actors has great performances. I was expecting to see another slasher teen horror movie and found a pleasant surprise. My vote is seven.

    Title (Brazil): Not Available
  • comment
    • Author: Qusserel
    In these recent years we've seen so many horror films with one crazy plot twist after another and presenting us convoluted story lines and deranged denouements. So how surprised I was to discover that SOLSTICE manages to tell a ghostly mystery plot that is so basic and simple, it actually turned into a solid and engaging film. The mystery develops slow but steady. There's practically no shocks or gore, but the film didn't need all that. And there's only one twist featured within the film, but it's a good one. The mood and atmosphere are tense. The cinematography looks great. The swamp and woods settings are wonderful and creepy at the same time.

    Veteran actor R. Lee Ermey has a small role, but his character actually has weight. Young actress Elisabeth Harnois plays a double role (Megan has a twin sister Sophie who's suicide becomes the core of the mystery) and I'd really love to see more of her. Aside from being beautiful, she's also perfectly capable of carrying this film with her lead performance.

    I thoroughly enjoyed SOLSTICE because it's very effective without over-doing things. I even liked the ending, which for once does not include the whole cast being slaughtered at the end of the film or a crazy twist still killing off the protagonist unexpectedly. That would have been too easy and predictable. The way things come to a conclusion now, makes it a better film, separating itself from the obvious ones. To give you an idea, I thought SOLSTICE was better than recent films like THE MARSH (2006) and BENEATH (2007).
  • comment
    • Author: Nten
    I don't really understand why this is a direct-to-video flick, as it had high production quality, familiar faces from TV, and a plot straight out of a Christopher Pike or R.L. Stein book. (Do those guys still put out books? I'm dating myself, but I used to read that junk 15 years ago.) Anyway, it was fairly predictable and certainly not very scary, but benefited from the always-fantastic atmosphere of back-woods Louisiana. Seriously, I think all horror movies should be set in the swamps of Louisiana. Much like Skeleton Key and Venom, Solstice probably gets a whole extra star for location alone.

    The "teens" were all easy on the eyes (most of the actors are in their late twenties, but whatever) and performances were adequate at worst.

    I'd give Solstice a 6 out of 10, considering it a teen chiller as opposed to a real horror movie.
  • comment
    • Author: Legionstatic
    After the death of her twin sister Sophie, Megan heads of for a few days with her friends. However, on arrival at the family cottage, Megan begins to experience visions and dreams. Is her sister trying to reach out to her from the dead, or is it something else....?

    Directed by Daniel Myrick, who co-directed The Blair Witch Project, Solstice has many things going for it. The cast are pretty good, with special mention to Elisabeth Harnois, as Sophie/Megan. On screen pretty much the whole film, meaning the film stands or falls on her being convincing, and she is very good indeed.

    The setting does give the film a nice atmosphere, and the story has enough of a mystery about it to keep you interested until the end.

    But as a film that is supposed to be a horror film, Solstice fails. Yes the setting is atmospheric, but none of the so-called scare scenes work at all. Myrick, who has made scarier films, doesn't pull of the scares here at all. In fact, I think the film would have been better as a mystery-type film, dropping the horror elements completely.

    Despite this though, I did enjoy it, and while it will never be remembered as a classic or highly regarded, I was never bored at any point and found it to be an enjoyable film.
  • comment
    • Author: Bukelv
    In 1999,The Blair Witch Project provoked a worldwide commotion because of its original (by that time) concept and for its minimalistic style.I liked that movie very much for being so innovative and for scaring me pretty much.After that,directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez seemed to have a brilliant future in the horror genre.But,it was not like that : they separated as a creative team and their following movies had a low-profile because they were made to the straight-to-DVD market and not many people know of their existence.By my point of view,their movies overcome the average of horror films made straight-to-DVD and,in spite of not being at the same level of The Blair Witch Project,I liked them pretty much.Now,we have Solstice,Myrick's most recent film and I also liked it pretty much.Solstice combines common clichés of different generations of ghosts movies pretty well,from the dark and Gothic atmosphere of Don't Look Now,to the ambiguous ghosts of the modern Asian horror cinema; fortunately,the movie uses that clichés with moderation and they are not used in an arbitrary way,but they are used as tools for telling an interesting and logic story,whose solid development and realistic characters lead to an unexpected ending which works very well.I also appreciated Myrick's restrained direction and the attractive cinematography.One of the few fails I found on this movie are the special effects because they do not produce too much impact.The cast is another good point from this movie,because everybody brings credible performances; I think the ones who mostly stand out are Elisabeth Harnois,Amanda Seyfried and the great R. Lee Ermey.Solstice is not a great movie and it's far away from it.But it brought me an interesting and very entertaining experience which concludes on a very satisfactory ending because it closes the story very well and it does not leave any plot holes or things without an explanation.In summary,Solstice is a very good horror film and I recommend it.
  • comment
    • Author: Gaudiker
    OK this is no classic but it's not suppose to be one. The storyline is a group of kids go to a cabin after one of the kid's twin sister commits suicide under mysterious circumstances. As soon as they arrive, they get haunted by a creepy ghost. It is also a remake but I haven't seen the original so I cannot compare this film to it.

    I think all the actors do a decent job though R. Lee Ermey definitely steals the show as a creepy resident in the woods. I think what I like about his character is the mystery that he carries with him which is what keeps me interested in finding out what his deal is. With the exception of his character, everyone else seems rather dull mostly because they have been done before with many other horror movies. You have the good girl who is the main character, the love interest who maybe holding a deadly secret and there is the joker who is a bit of a jerk. It's all too traditional to be but the performances of all the actors does make them very believable that you can see past those traditional clichés of the characters.

    The film doesn't deliver a great deal of scares but when it does, they really work and that is best thing about this film. The ghost is very creepy looking and the story does keep you hooked as the characters try to find out the mystery of what it is that is haunting them and why the ghost is doing it. As in most nowadays ghosts films, it is all about what has happened to them that has caused them to be dead which I have no problem with just so long as the twist is something new which I found the revelation of the main villain who caused the ghost's death to be rather obvious but the identity of the ghost was a surprise. This was because the film would tease you to believe that the ghost was the main character's twin sister but it turns out to be someone different.

    Overall, the film isn't very original but it does have some qualities such as believable performances, a surprising twist and some eerie scenes that should keep most ghost story fans hooked but don't expect anything new.
  • comment
    • Author: Memuro
    Okay, so this movie went straight to DVD, which would have many people assuming that it can't be all that great, and while it wasn't the best horror movie I've ever seen it wasn't bad at all. Despite what I've read, it had really good pacing with a number of creepy scenes spread out in the movie enough to keep one interested and slightly creeped out. The acting really helps too and you can see all the inner conflicts of the two main characters as they struggle to come to terms with what they're dealing with. The only thing I didn't like was the way the climax of the movie ended. The rest of the climax is great, but the resolution...not what I would have done. All in all, this movie was worth watching and I'm glad I saw it.
  • comment
    • Author: Nakora
    Well, those are the words that come to my mind when I think of Solstice.

    How many times before a story following that same sort of plot has been told ? Zillions! Why ghost stories only know how to tell one type of story: Mysterious things happen. A particular person start to see and feel odd things. Is it a message from the "other side"? Nobody believes anything this particular person says. Then in the end of the movie the whole thing becomes clear after one or two plot twists. The body of the wandering ghost is found and then she/he can rest in peace, and justice is made finally.

    Solstice has a nice production, but that is it. The story sucks. It is weak, deja-vu all over again.
  • comment
    • Author: Monin
    I must say I really enjoyed this movie,I thought the acting was really good and the story was good. But I wouldn't say that its a Horror movie you may jump a couple of times because you weren't ready for something to happen but its nothing "scary" in the sense that its a lot of gore or things that are often in horror movies I'd say its the music and the sound affects that does most of the so called "scare" but I would say its a really good thriller! I also like it because the movie didn't die of in part of the movie like it does in many movies. its really consistent all through the movie, witch is important so you don't get bored or sit and wait for something to happen. An overall good thriller well worth watching! Its a 7/10 for me.
  • comment
    • Author: Goldfury
    This is an effective little thriller in that you never truly know what has happened until the last 10 minutes of the movie.

    Megan, grieving over the death of her twin sister, visits the family summer home with a group of her friends, including her sister's ex-boyfriend. Haunted by the past, she has a series of visions. She is also creeped out by an old vagrant, played by R. Lee Ermy, who can't seem to get jobs playing psychotic Drill Sergeants anymore, so he's getting jobs as psychotic hillbillies.

    The movie drags in places, but it still very suspenseful, and the ending is pretty awesome.
  • comment
    • Author: Xava
    This is a very underrated story.... probably because it doesn't tell it's story with over-the-top tactics. But it is well worth watching, and the end is just such a surprise you feel really good about taking the time to watch it. Suspense, not over the top.... but lots of hidden secrets not revealed till the right time. The story is told in real time and flashbacks that build too the revelation of so many unanswered questions. All the actors are young and too me unknowns, but all did a very good job at player their character. If you see the word horror in any descriptions, believe me, there is no horror in this movie. What you see is not gore but bizarre things that happen. Catch the beginning the scene so you catch on quickly to who this story is about and how it affects the main character.
  • comment
    • Author: Wohald
    Well, Solstice gets a high-five for good casting, visuals, sound and overall atmosphere.

    Only problem is the story. It's the same type of ghost story a proper horror fan has seen a gazillion times. And it's a remake! Why? Also, at 87 minutes, this felt like hours. Bo-ring. There are red herrings, scary shadows, MTV-style flashbacks from the dead, and while it's all well done, it's all been done before. Thank you, but no.

    Myrick had a mediocre movie (Believers, also (V)) and a good one ruined by a terribly miscast main actor and a "gotcha-sucker!" ending (The Objective). At least here, justice was served and this went straight to DVD where it belongs.

    Eduardo Sanchez' "Altered", although more of a sci-fi horror hybrid on a low budget, is superior to all of the above mentioned films in my opinion. Here's hoping that Myrick (who has loads of talent) will make a proper great movie in the future.

    5/10
  • comment
    • Author: Cala
    From the writer/director of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT Daniel Myrick, who spins a tale influenced by a Scandinavian thriller MIDSUMMER. SOLSTICE is a haunting yarn about a group of high school friends getting together for one last blow out before heading to college. Less than a year after losing her twin sister to suicide, Megan(Elisabeth Harnois)joins her friends on a trip to the family summer home on the Louisiana bayou. Things get real bizarre when Megan thinks she is being contacted by her sister from beyond the grave. A local hunk(Tyler Hoechlin)comes to dinner and teaches the group a Creole spell of the summer solstice. They actually try and raise Megan's sister from the dead...not without casualties. Flashbacks tend to disjoint the whole story and gets tiresome quickly. Also in the cast: Shawn Ashmore, Hilarie Burton, R. Lee Ermey and Matt O'Leary.
  • comment
    • Author: Nkeiy
    I'm very surprised that it's NOT mentioned that Solstice is a remake of "Midsommer"(a Norwegian/Swedish, horror/drama/thriller, from 2003) I've seen both movies and the plot is almost identical. Of course the details is somewhat different, but overall, it is most definitely the same story. The Norwegian/Swedish story (being the original), IS better (also it made the theaters). Solstice offered no surprises and parts of the story was really to convenient (thinking specially of one of the characters, if you see the movie, you'll know what I'm talking about). If you haven't seen "Midsommer", then I recommend you to see it first (if you can) before "Solstice".
  • comment
    • Author: VariesWent
    This movie is what you get when you try to stretch a paragraphs' worth of plot and about two sentences' worth of characterization into a hour-and-a-half story. This ghostly tale is equal parts dumb and boring and the few cheap scares it musters up can't compete with a plethora of astoundingly contrived scenes and a near total lack of recognizable human behavior.

    6 months after her twin sister committed suicide, Megan (Elisabeth Harnois) and her 4 friends head out to a big house in the Louisiana swamps to celebrate the Summer Solstice before heading off to college in the fall. While she's there, Megan is tormented by frightening visions that revolve around a teddy bear key chain her sister always carried around. What looks like the girl from the well in The Ring movies also shows up a couple of times. After boinking her dead sister's ex-boyfriend and making goo goo eyes at a handsome local who knows a little cajun voodoo, Megan finally discovers the reason she's being haunted and how it's connected to a creepy redneck who lives across the lake.

    From teenagers putting on suits and ties to hold a dinner party to a huge house in the swamp that's perfectly maintained without a caretaker, from a plot twist that makes you want to throw something at the screen to one of Megan's friends looking like a preppie who escaped from a 1980s sex comedy (including wearing a polo shirt with an upturned collar), there's nothing about this film that makes sense or resembles anything like reality. These filmmakers took a very old and very clichéd ghost story that everyone's heard before and just started stapling stupid stuff onto it.

    There are 7 characters in the story, yet they don't even have one personality among them. The film throws a few dream sequences at the audience but never defines exactly when they begin. So when the dream sequences end, you're not sure what actually happened and what was the dream. There's a series of flashbacks to the night Megan's sister killed herself, but there's no connection between what's going on in the story and when we see the flashbacks. It's not like something happens that makes Megan or someone else remember that night. The flashbacks are just inserted into the film, like little bathroom breaks for the viewer. You certainly can take a whiz anytime a flashback happens, because none of them contribute anything to the story.

    If its cast of attractive young people had at least gotten naked a few times, Solstice might have been almost tolerable. If R. Lee Ermey had gone the full monty, it might have become horrifically irresistible. As it is, Solstice is just another PG-13 horror flick where the only horrifying thing about it is that I paid money to watch this piece of crap.
  • comment
    • Author: Tujar
    I don't know what the budget was for Solstice, but no one is complaining about it's technical merits. It looks and sounds as shiny as an MTV video of the year. The cast is young and attractive--I would say they looked like they were straight out of a Noxema commercial, but I don't think those are around anymore. The plot contains a secret at the end and not much leading up to it, but that won't bother the target audience. If only there was a memorable villain, like Chucky or Jason, so that the kindergärtners whose parents allow them to watch anything and everything, could remember something to talk about with their friends. At least Jeepers Creepers had that flying scarecrow.

    The kid who played Iceman in "X-men" and the dumb girl from "Mean Girls" take a vacation to the middle of nowhere with a group of friends. Central to this story is Megan, who needs some time away to deal with the recent death of her twin sister. Except that she is having visions and experiencing unexplained occurrences that seem to be some sort of communication from the undead. Is it her sister trying to tell her something? Or are the messages coming from the innocent girl that Iceman killed last summer and then buried without telling anyone?

    You will only think this movie is original, well-written, or well-acted if you haven't watched very many movies. In which case, you won't care--you and your friends will be more geeked about having scored that six-pack earlier in the evening than anything that happens in any video you might be renting tonight.
  • comment
    • Author: Mataxe
    After watching this, I kind of agonized whether to come here and write a review. I really had high hopes for this one, primarily because I usually really like Supernatural tales or Ghost Stories that are done well, but sadly this one left me a little bit flat (kind of like Chaz Bono)

    The tricky thing about this movie is that technically it is rather good. The photography and look of the film lend well to the overall mood and atmosphere of the story. It's just that to me personally, in my lowly and wretched opinion, there was just something substantial missing that might have made this film better. Even the acting, which normally can be quite abysmal in these low-budget 'Teen' Horror films, was decent enough with what they had to work with. I don't know... I almost want to say that I got a slightly shallow 'MTV' type of vibe from it, especially with the sound design, but I'm not sure that was quite it...

    I will say that there were 2 VERY brief moments that I really liked in the film. Without giving anything away, I liked the part where the dog was chasing her into the woods and what happened. Also, and this was like ONE minute only... I liked the old-fashioned / religious sounding choral voices in the soundtrack when they were sitting outside and the main girl got up and left the group and approached the barn-like structure (I also liked the lighting effect that went along with that)

    I'm thinking that probably the reason they went back and released this older film is because now Amanda Seyfried has become much more famous. I was quite surprised that it was made in 2008! She, was not particularly outstanding in her role, but she was okay. Actually, I felt that the main girl did a much better job (granted, she had a LOT more to do) She kept reminding me of someone (I don't think I have seen her either before or since) It wasn't just her looks, but her expressions and manner. I THINK who she was reminding me of was a younger version of Lisa Kudrow, sort of... Heh, not really relevant I guess, but still it kind of nagged at me while I was watching the film...

    Anyway, I usually really LOVE a good Cajun / Haitian Voodoo flavoured film. As a matter of fact I just saw the recent 'JESSEBELLE' and really liked it. I think, overall, that film was a better example of creating a more creepy and suspenseful mood and ultimately being more effective than this one. In reading some of the other reviews here, it appears that many people DID indeed find the movie satisfying enough. Most of the reviews and the current ratings seem to land between '5' and '6', which sounds about right to me (I gave it a '5' because it just seemed to fall a bit short in a few areas)

    As far as whether to recommend this to others as a 'Good' film, that would have to be based I guess on how demanding you are with these types of movies. Definitely, if you don't really go for Supernatural or Ghost Stories that much, then for sure give this one a pass... But, if you do like those types of films and if you are not expecting TOO much, then you might enjoy this one somewhat. But honestly, I personally just found it a bit weak. And I really do think that there are similar but much better films than this out there...
  • comment
    • Author: Llallayue
    Megan (Elisabeth Harnois) is still grieving her twin sister Sofie's suicide. She goes to her family's Louisiana house with friends Christian (Shawn Ashmore), Zoe (Amanda Seyfried), Mark (Matt O'Leary) and Alicia (Hilarie Burton). She befriends local Nick. She feels a presence imagining it to be Sofie. With the Solstice coming, she hopes to reconnect with her but finds a darker secret.

    Daniel Myrick who brought the world The Blair Witch Project is going with a more traditional horror movie. Without a gimmick, he gives few scares and little suspense. This one stars some pretty good actors. Although I like all the actors, the characters have little chemistry. This is more due to a very bland script. The ghost story has very few scary moments. The reveal lacks any tension or satisfaction. If not for the likable actors, I wouldn't care about anything in this movie. It is simply forgettable. Nothing annoying or offensive. Just bland.
  • comment
    • Author: Mr_TrOlOlO
    An adult would find this extremely boring, predictable and immature.

    If you are 15-17, you would probably enjoy this movie.

    I would not let anyone under 14 see this movie, because of sexual themes and some shock-value spooks. There is basically no gore, just a bleeding finger.

    Revenge from the grave is trite and unrealistic and it was done very poorly in this movie. The shove-it-all-down-your-throat ending was expected and not appreciated.

    I can't say I cared if any of the characters lived or died, they were all irritating and unintelligent.

    A generous 4 stars is all I can muster.
  • comment
    • Author: Xanzay
    When I watched this movie, I was struck by how bland, boring, and predictable it was. It was never actually bad or anything, but it was arguably memorable for being so forgettable. It was only after I came to the IMDb that I discovered it was directed by one of the guys responsible for that utter borefest, The Blair Witch Project. At that moment, everything made sense to me, and I felt totally vindicated in my intense dislike for TBWP (which all my friends, at the time, seemed to think was pure genius). I also realized that this director had done The Believers, which was, unsurprisingly, a bit of a borefest, though the ending was kind of cool (even though it was stolen from a Arthur C. Clarke story). Unfortunately, this movie doesn't really have an interesting twist to save it, unless you're really, really unfamiliar with the last 50 years worth of ghost stories coming out of Hollywood.

    Eduardo Sanchez, the co-director of TBWP, made a pretty good movie a few years ago, called Altered, about a group of friends who have a really nasty series of run-ins with malevolent aliens. Unlike this one, I walked in to that movie thinking it was going to be crap, but I was quite surprised at how much I liked it. It was suspenseful, gory, and, while it wasn't really original, it still managed to put its own spin on a common theme (alien abduction). Really, it was more a movie about rape than anything else, couched in science fiction/horror elements. This movie? It's exactly what it looks like -- a group of stupid teenagers (played by 30 year old actors, of course), including a depressed girl, the depressed girl's best friend, an insensitive jerk, the insensitive jerk's long-suffering girlfriend, and the depressed girl's love interest (who also happens to be her dead twin sister's ex-boyfriend), spend about 70 minutes getting drunk, followed by about 15-20 minutes of plot, wherein they follow the psychic intuitions of the depressed girl, only to solve a Scooby Doo mystery. Unfortunately, this movie has all the thrills, mystery, and suspense of your average Scooby Doo episode, perhaps due to the PG rating. Amusingly, the ghosts ended up just standing around, in the background, looking as bored as I felt, while I was watching this movie.

    Prepare to be bored to death, rather than scared to death.
  • comment
    • Author: Welen
    Watching Solstice is a bit like platting fog ! yes there is a storyline and maybe the writers are aiming at a student/ teen cult market, but I don't think this film quite hits it. It is like an old 70's / 80's movie. I don't think solstice will be cult or stand the test of time. I was not a big fan of Blair Witch but I could see the appeal and would give that a good rating. If they thought they would capture the same audience they may. Only once I think. Not being the first to slate this movie I feel confident that my opinion is valid. Solstice is weak. You really have to draw your imagination into wanting to be on the edge of your seat with this one. The actors are all good its just the poor movie.
  • comment
    • Author: Foiuost
    A shockingly boring product, 'Solstice' is perhaps one of the earliest 'by-products' of the Writer's Strike of 2007-2008.

    When you rent a movie, your basest hope is to derive SOME pleasure from your money spent. 15 minutes pass, you're annoyed and nodding off at the same time, and you wonder if you should hit Fast-Forward or Eject.

    In this film, the characters lack anything resembling human interest. Their dialog contains zero references to 2008 society or culture. This script could have been written in 1980, or 1970 for that matter! It's a by-the-numbers dull-fest!

    Want to save a buck on sleeping pills? Watch "Solstice"!
  • comment
    • Author: Kupidon
    I first watched this movie when i bought it a couple of months back and i was excited to see that is rated PG-13, which told me that its not going to be a gore flick with a lot of horror violence, but a creepy teenage thriller. It is spooky and harrowing. Im a huge horror buff, but I occasionally like some non violent and supernatural flicks. Solstice featured a spooky story line and a great teenage cast, including Elisabeth Harnois(90210 and One Tree Hill), Shawn Ashmore(The Ruins), Hilarie Burton(One Tree Hill and The Secret Life of Bees), Amanda Seyfried(Alpha Dog, Mean Girls and the Upcoming 2009 Teenage Horror Flick Jennifer's Body), Matt O'Leary(Death Sentence and 2009's Sorority Row) and Tyler Hoechlin(Grizzly Rage and 7th Heaven). This flick has all of the horror elements, like a group of friends celebrating at a house in the wilderness and then being terrorized by a masked killer, only this one has a supernatural twist to it. A group of close friends decide to spend the weekend at a friends family's home deep in the wilderness to celebrate their graduation, only to be caught up in a series of supernatural occurrences and an ancient voodoo ceremony, that places the friends in mortal danger. They must discover the dark secret that binds them together and the recent death of their friend. This movie terrified me and I definitely recommend it!!
  • comment
    • Author: LONUDOG
    We have here another thriller in which a bunch of young people head out into the middle of nowhere and find themselves stuck in a "scary" situation. What I will say in favour of this movie is that at least it avoided the cliché of having some type of cannibalistic mass murderer out to get them (a cliché that was actually mentioned by one of the characters when they met up with the creepy old guy from the other side of the lake.) In this case, we have young Megan, still tormented by the suicide of her twin sister six months before, heading off with a bunch of her friends on their annual trip to celebrate the summer solstice in the Bayou of Louisiana. Why they do this wasn't entirely clear to me, except that Megan's mom is some sort of anthropologist or something who specializes in culture and so apparently they celebrate every holiday known to humanity (which is a pretty nice gig if you can get it!) Once they're in the Bayou, Megan starts to have visions which she thinks are of her sister, and she discovers in a magazine (quite conveniently) that the summer solstice is the perfect time to contact the dead. She also conveniently runs into a local hunk of a grocery store clerk who happens to know how to contact the dead because his grandmother was involved in voodoo. I'm not kidding.

    Now, as truly silly as that all seems, I have to say that, while it's full of mostly forgettable (although not bad) performances, this movie isn't terrible. There's a pretty decent buildup of the intrigue and suspense until the final secret which finally connects both Megan's visions and the creepy old guy is revealed, but you do have to get through a lot of pretty cliché type situations to get there. As a timewaster this isn't bad, but if you want a really good thriller, this is not going to satisfy at all. 5/10
  • Cast overview:
    Elisabeth Harnois Elisabeth Harnois - Megan / Sophie
    Shawn Ashmore Shawn Ashmore - Christian
    Hilarie Burton Hilarie Burton - Alicia
    Amanda Seyfried Amanda Seyfried - Zoe
    Tyler Hoechlin Tyler Hoechlin - Nick
    Matt O'Leary Matt O'Leary - Mark
    R. Lee Ermey R. Lee Ermey - Leonard
    Lisa Arnold Lisa Arnold - Mrs. Thomas
    Lyle Brocato Lyle Brocato - Partier
    David Dahlgren David Dahlgren - Mr. Thomas
    Jenna Hildebrand Jenna Hildebrand - Malin (as Jenna Lynn Hildebrand)
    Mark Krasnoff Mark Krasnoff - Cop
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