There was a time when the words “straight-to-video” carried an unspoken implication of mediocrity, at best – but that was before a massive shift in the film industry, accelerated but perhaps not solely driven by the pandemic and the need it created for “watch at home” options – changed the game when it comes to judging a movie by its viewing format.
Consider “Summoning Sylvia,” a campy horror comedy that made its VOD premiere on April 7, in which all but one of the characters (two if you count dead people) are queer. It’s safe to say that it’s definitely a “niche” film, and despite being granted a brief-and-perfunctory theatrical run – presumably, like most non-mainstream movies of similar ilk, for the purposes of awards consideration – it’s not the kind of thing that might have gotten a wide big screen release at any point in the history of the American film industry. At first assessment, it might seem like a rollicking, raunchy and VERY gay piece of fluff; it’s all those things, but it has a lot more imagination and ambition behind it than meets the eye from scrolling past the trailer on social media.
Written and directed by Wesley Taylor and Alex Wyse, it’s an absurdly farcical yet genuinely hair-raising adventure in which Larry (Travis Coles), on the eve of being “gay-married,” is kidnapped by his groomsmen (Frankie Grande, Troy Iwata, and Noah J. Ricketts) for a bachelor party weekend at a country house in upstate New York, reputedly haunted by the ghost of a woman (the titular Sylvia, played by Veanne Cox) who murdered her own son (Camden Garcia) before being killed herself by an angry mob 100 years ago. Naturally, the queer quartet tries to unravel this century-old mystery by holding a séance, but the unforeseen addition to the mix of future brother-in-law Harrison (Nicholas Logan) – an ex-soldier with clearly antisocial and possibly homophobic personality issues – turns their tongue-in-cheek party game into a terrifying-yet-hilarious battle with the dark forces that seemingly rule over their fashionably rustic Airbnb.