Released: August 10, 2018
Directors: Francois Simard, Anouk Whissell, & Yoann-Karl Whissell
Screenplay: Matt Leslie & Stephen J. Smith
Tagline: "Every serial killer lives next door to someone"
Cast:
Graham Verchere as Davey Armstrong
Caleb Emery as Dale "Woody" Woolworth
Rich Sommer as Wayne Mackey
Tiera Skovbye as Nikki Kaszuba
Judah Lewis as Tommy "Eats" Eaton
Cory Gruter-Andrew as Curtis Farraday
Davey Armstrong is your typical, All-American, 80's nerd. He has a passion for conspiracies, hidden truths, and secrets hidden in plain sight. His bedroom and treehouse are littered with all things National Enquirer from Bigfoot to UFO sightings to anything else you could imagine would interest Fox Mulder. His three best friends don't quire share his enthusiasm for the weird and the macabre, but they're a tight-knit gang nonetheless, excited to spend their summer at the arcade, riding their bikes, and playing Midnight around their quiet, suburban neighborhood in between razzing each other for being virgins and losing their shit around their hot blonde neighbor, Nikki. When Davey begins to suspect that their friendly cop neighbor, Mr. Mackey, might be the serial killer dominating local headlines, the Cape May Strangler, he convinces his friends to join him on a quest to prove his guilt and save the town's teen boys from becoming potential victims.
Like a lackadaisical summer day, this movie takes awhile to get moving. This is both beneficial in terms of time for character development, and a hindrance in terms of establishing tension. We linger a bit too long in introducing the setting, with the filmmakers seemingly desperate to show the viewer how meticulously they've recreated a 1980's suburban cal-de-sac. This isn't to say that they didn't do a great job and should be praised for it, as everything from the clothes to the cars to the decor is spot on, but it can feel like the set pieces are the focus of the film at times, and the characters are just window dressing. Especially since they occupy the space of archetypes rather than fully drawn individuals.
Some of the actors really make their characters shine, while others translate quite poorly. Jason Gray-Stanford, who plays Davey's father, is awkward and over-the-top and to be honest, I didn't understand a single one of his acting choices. On the other side of things, Tara Skovbye, whom some genre fans will recognize from Riverdale, and Rich Sommer (Mad Men's Harry Crane) steal every scene that they're in. Skovbye makes you fall in love with Nikki, channeling Elisabeth Shue from The Karate Kid (1984) and making it easy to understand why all of the boys like her. There's a really great character moment with her near the end of the second act that made me wish the film had used her more. That said, Sommer is very appropriately used, and is definitely the film's secret weapon. His perfect, nice guy next door vibe clashes brilliantly with the mounting evidence (albeit circumstantial) hinting at a darker side and in the film's final bone-chilling moments (don't worry, no spoilers) he runs away with the whole show.
Somewhat corny dialogue and so-so performances from the core group of child performers aside, by the time the aforementioned climax arrives, your realize that you've really grown to care for this dorky quartet. Perhaps not as much as the Goonies or the Losers Club, but they carve their own niche. And the ending is surprisingly dark even given the buildup. It's jarring, but completely earned, and posits an interesting reflection on our culture's current true crime obsession, juxtaposing it with the exposure of serial killers to the American suburban public eye in the 1980's. In the end, we're left with a sinister reminder that the truth is often not what we want to hear, yes, but that it is also not at all what we think.
Goodbye summer, indeed.
Summer of 84
5-Totally Terrifying
4-Crazy Creepy
3-Fairly Frightening
2-Slightly Scary
1-Hardly Horror
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