If you dig Bigfoot movies, but wish they contained more marital strife, good news: Jon Garcia, the director of an actual movie called Sex Weather, gives you Summoning the Spirit.
Seeking a new start post-miscarriage, spouses Dean (Ernesto Reyes, TV’s American Gods) and Carla (Krystal Millie Valdes) buy a cozy house amid 5 acres of forest. While he dictates chapters of Oregon Trail historical fiction into a handheld recorder, she gets to know the locals, a bunch of New Age woo-woos with names like River and Clear who say they were called here “by the spirit.”
Living on a farm, these neighbors call themselves The Mountain People. They worship “the giants in the forest.” They have a podcast. They conduct daytime orgies. Regarding the latter, Dean asks, “Did you do stuff? Like sexy stuff?” And despite all evidence within the previous 75 minutes, Dean is shocked — shocked, I tell you! — by the realization The Mountain People are a cult.
A markedly different slice of sasquatch cinema, Summoning the Spirit dips all its toes into arthouse folk horror while also delivering on the most exploitable part of the film: Bigfoot, of course. You see the beast in the first five minutes — and not in the usual fleeting-tease glimpses. Every time the cryptid shows up, hell is raised and the movie instantly becomes better.
While that’s not enough in the long run to merit a glowing recommendation, it’s enough for a mild one. Plus, the Bigfoot costume is great. Thank God Garcia couldn’t afford CGI. —Rod Lott