Summer of 84 follows a bunch of teenage boys trying to determine if a serial killer is the friendly neighborhood cop next door. After I saw the preview, I had no plans to see it in theaters and immediately put it in my queue, but I would be lying if I said that I absolutely would not have paid to see it. It was only playing a couple of Saturdays at midnight at a nearby favorite theater, but with more showings, the lure of a possible scary movie and real butter popcorn probably could have sucked me in if it was a slow movie weekend, and I was still a night owl.
Summer of 84 is the kind of movie that you would make if you watched The Monster Squad and It: Chapter One, but didn’t have the rights to the Stephen King story, took out the supernatural elements and are clueless in how to root your story in any credible emotional reality. It felt as if the writers began with a firm denouement then tried to reverse engineer a story to get to that point instead of just settling for a really evocative and chilling short movie.
Summer of 84 was more obsessed with the eighties references than the characters. I found the eighties references more obnoxious than nostalgic, and I love the eighties. Bananarama, Cobra Commander, Spielberg, Star Wars, Gremlins and MTV. We get it! The era was a separate character chewing the scenery and trying its best to distract us from a story that devoted less time to character development and interaction than listing their favorite thing. I’m going to spoil the entire movie because it really isn’t worth your time.
The coolest part of Summer of 84 is that the family photographs in the killer’s house that are shown in the beginning of the movie are later revealed to be photographs of his victims. Unfortunately the killer’s modus operandi does not quite work if you think about his actions knowing the ending. Once he has the central figure in his home, why does he let him go in the beginning? There needed to be something that made it seem reasonable to let him go. Why does he like to kill boys? The idea that he just vanishes into thin air once we know his identity seems ridiculous if he does not have a source of enormous income that we don’t know about. Did he always have a plan and a go bag? Also while letting the protagonist go at the end is a nice bookend to the beginning, it feels gimmicky and too philosophical that he likes the idea of leaving him traumatized and in limbo for life. If he isn’t his type, then show me why. I would have loved if he left the protagonist devastated because he thought that the kid was as annoying as I did, and he just didn’t want to waste his time with someone who was beneath him. It feels like a movie and not real. I basically think that the filmmakers were fine with a child killer, but pedophilia was a skosh too far for them. Listen guys, you made this problem for yourself so fix it before you film it.
I didn’t like the choice of the protagonist. As someone who is very interested in serial killers, I think that it is important not to confuse interest with stupidity. I would not be psyched or consider it cool to discover that a serial killer was murdering people who resemble me. I was actually hoping that he was wrong because I thought that he was an inconsiderate jackass who needed to be knocked down a peg, but the neighbor would do enough weird crap to keep him on the short list of suspects. Summer of 84 has a theme of a secret life behind every door in suburbia except the protagonist. I actually think there was a missed opportunity to make the protagonist’s father the serial killer since he was also reporting on it. It would have provided a less disturbing motive and completed the theme. Also I am clueless when it comes to average dad behavior, but dads, would you rat out your kid if someone did not know that your kid thought he was a killer? I didn’t buy it, but I also wouldn’t know. At least fire the dad for his son using his job’s equipment! So many dangling threads!
I was less emotionally invested in the protagonist than Woody, and I know that the filmmakers did that so the viewers would keenly feel the loss once the killer murdered Woody, but why punk out? Just make Woody the protagonist then kill your protagonist. I loved Woody. He was so Anglo, and his mom was so obviously ethnic, specifically Puerto Rican, Dominican, that I wanted to know their backstory, but was fine with not knowing it. Also Woody was sweet; however I don’t think a single mother could afford Calvin Klein jeans for her son. If Woody was the focus, it would be a stronger story.
I beg of movies to stop with the girl suddenly getting interested in the boy next door because she caught him spying on her with binoculars. Has this ever happened? Even King David had to summon Bathsheba. To make matters worse, she is older than him so their ginned up relationship feels more like a dead end than most, especially since she is going away to college. Dude, if you didn’t start this movie as her boyfriend, you’re not leaving this movie as her boyfriend. That dog won’t hunt. The other friends were so forgettable that I forgot them. I vaguely feel as if one had an abusive dad and was oddly too cool to be hanging out with that crew. One kid is smaller than the rest of the crew. If my life depended on it, I couldn’t remember anyone’s name except Woody and Mackey. The best part of Summer of 84 was that by the end, none of them still seemed to hang out, which would happen if one of your friends got killed. Marriages haven’t come back after less tragedy. Another reason that Slender Man, the Hollywood take on the urban legend, didn’t work, but I digress.
Summer of 84 waits too long to rev up then when it finally does something, it feels unearned as if someone cheated on a test and didn’t show the work to get the right answer. I’m happy to see Rich Sommer, whom I’ve liked since his brief appearance in The Devil Wears Prada, but hope that he gets to work on better projects because they just wasted his time. Skip it and watch It instead.