Cuba Gooding, Jr. has been in some real dogs lately, so with "Summoned", I didn't expect much. What I didn't expect was for Mr. Gooding to make a couple of bland cameo appearances that added exactly nothing to the story. Any actor from Central Casting could as easily have filled this slot. And playing on Mr. Gooding's name to sell the film, well, considering his recent films, I'm not sure that was a brilliant idea either. Getting past that, this film had reasonable suspense but was of course disappointing since it made no sense whatsoever. In the beginning it appears that the spirit of an executed serial killer has come back to avenge himself on the 12 jurors who convicted him. But that's just trick photography. We eventually learn that a real live person is doing the killing. But why? Forget the many reasons you might dream up. There is no reason. Just senseless killing. For all that, the actors do a credible job and keep up the suspense. It's simply that the end and the entire exposition turn out to be so lame it makes you feel you've been cheated
again. And what in the world does the word "Summoned" have to do with this?
Review of Summoned
