Written by Matt Leslie and Stephen J. Smith
Directed by Francois Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell
Starring Graham Verchere, Judah Lewis, Caleb Emery, Cory Gruter-Andrew, Tiera Skovbye and Rich Sommer
Canada
Ah, nostalgia. Much like that first FEAR STREET movie, SUMMER OF 84 roped me in easily as the 1980s setting both reminded me of my own childhood as well as all the movies it wanted to remind me of – mostly of the Spielbergian variety, even if the plot comes by way of Hitchcock.
Here we have your requisite group of 4 80s teens on their bikes: the normal guy you identify with, the “cool” guy, the nerdy guy and the tubby guy. The normal guy thinks a local cop he delivers the paper to might be the serial killer who is terrorizing the town, making young boys disappear. But everyone tells him he’s crazy. Still, with his pals and his ex-babysitter, he sets off to find the truth.
This is an interesting juxtaposition: unlike other 80s nostalgia vehicles like SUPER 8 (if you even remember that movie – I feel old even referencing it) and STRANGER THINGS, there’s no supernatural element – so, while there’s plenty of fun to be had with this movie, when you boil it down, it IS about a serial killer who kills children. So, a little more somber than some of this other stuff, which works to the movie’s credit until the climactic finale, which left me unsatisfied and upset.
I’m not one of those guys who always wants a happy ending or to have everything tied up in a bow, but some endings work and others don’t, and this one doesn’t. The tone of the movie is all over the place, but that might not have mattered if it had a solid ending that brought everything together. Instead the ending seems to make everything worse. But the (bike) ride to get there was pretty good.
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