Throughout the ‘80s, watching Sunday night Disney programming on network TV was a staple of my childhood. Regardless of what its exact title happened to be (The Disney Sunday Movie from 1986–1988 or The Magical World of Disney from 1988–1990), these Sunday evening movies served as a stark reminder that I had school the next day and that my weekend had officially come to a close, and a bittersweet reminder of how fantasy can often ease the transition back into reality and the importance of “one last hurrah.” Oddly enough, it’s this bygone yet fondly remembered television format that Wesley Taylor and Alex Wyse’s Summoning Sylvia most resembles, and that, my friends, is not something I would have ever expected.
At its heart, Summoning Sylvia follows the tried-and-true (and often watered-down) haunted house formula we’re all familiar with: a group of friends descend upon a creepy old house for the weekend but wind up conjuring something they hadn’t bargained for. But, where a Disney production would most likely feature a family (think 1986’s Mr. Boogedy, a movie that is easily the spiritual godmother of Summoning Sylvia and one that thoroughly creeped me out when I saw it in second grade), Taylor and Wyse subvert all norms by having their story centered around a gay bachelor party.
Yet, despite these characterization changes, raunchy dialogue, and clever observations about modern LGBTQ life and homogenized American heteronormative dominance, Summoning Sylvia, quite impressively, still manages to feel like a long-lost Sunday night Disney movie. Whether or not this is by design, I can’t say, but it’s certainly an impressive feat either way.
However, just as its predecessors were goofy romps through the world of low-budget camp, so is Summoning Sylvia. While it never quite manages to break free of its budgetary constraints enough to offer something truly unique and memorable, it does use what it has to a more than serviceable extent. Sure, the plot is cliched, and there’s a weird homophobic brother-in-law angle that feels shoehorned in, but the principle cast (Travis Coles, Noah Ricketts, Frankie Grande, and Troy Iwata) mostly make up for these shortcomings with witty banter and comically over-dramatic deliveries.
In other words, Summoning Sylvia, in lesser hands, could have been a disaster, but Taylor and Wyse hold it together with a series of wise choices, a never-ending sense of fun, and a sweet, if somewhat predictable, twist that easily overshadows the many flaws usually associated with low-budget horror flicks. Summoning Sylvia might not completely break the mold, but it does update it by unapologetically redefining the boundaries that have kept it constrained for so long.
James is a writer, skateboarder, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.