_**An Imitation of Tarantino About a Group of Naive People**_ In 1988, three teenage girls who like metal music (Alexandra Daddario, Maddie Hasson, and Amy Forsyth) drive through rural Indiana to see the band Soldiers of Satan perform. They meet three guys (Keean Johnson, Logan Miller, and Austin Swift) and invite them back to Alexis’s father's mansion for a party that eventually becomes something terrible. “We Summon the Darkness” (2019) is enjoyable at first because it shows us 1988 and a metal concert—which includes MF’s “Black Funeral”—but then it drags on in the mansion, where it’s obvious the director and writer were trying to make something like a Tarantino film. The issue is that they aren't Tarantino. They don’t have his skill as a writer, particularly when it comes to dialogue, and they didn’t cast actors who could handle the story well. I won’t say the six main performers do poorly; they’re fine for an independent movie, but they are nowhere near the same level as John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bridget Fonda, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, and others. One problem is that the two lead girls, Alexis (Daddario) and Val (Hasson), don’t seem convincing, especially after a major plot point is revealed. They try to portray these intense, psychotic women, but they come across as silly rather than frightening—particularly the attractive Val. Sometimes it even feels funny, making me wonder if it's meant to be a dark comedy. There’s a lot of screaming and bloodshed in the mansion that becomes tiresome and predictable, similar to the later parts of "Psycho II" (1983), “Scream” (1996) and “The Hateful Eight” (2015). The film suggests that things aren't always as they seem and people can be easily misled, which is a worthwhile point. However, I didn’t find the twist believable—and I’m not just talking about the initial surprise, but everything that follows. It could also be argued that money is at the root of all evil and that good-hearted individuals have been corrupted by greed, leading their followers astray. But it feels too contrived here, like the filmmakers had a political agenda that's jarring. I’d much rather watch “Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood” (2019). The movie is 1 hour and 30 minutes long and was filmed in Winnipeg, Manitoba. GRADE: C/C-

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