Summer of 84 (2018)
Directed by Francois Simard, Anouk Whissell, Yoann Karl Whissell
Written by Matt Leslie, Stephen J. Smith
Starring Graham Verschere, Judah Lewis, Rich Sommer
Release Date August 10th, 2018
Published October 24th, 2018
Summer of 84 comes depressingly close to greatness. As I watched it, I thought perhaps I was seeing the next The Goonies or Stand by Me. What a shame it was then to watch the filmmakers trade greatness for shock value. The final act of Summer of 84 is such a bleak and bummer of an ending that what I thought was going to become a cult phenomenon became just another mediocre schlockfest.
Summer of 84 stars Graham Verschere as Davey, a not so average teenager in a relatively average small town. Along with his friends, Eats (Judah Lewis), Farraday (Corey Gruter Andrew) and Woody (Caleb Embry), Davey runs around town thinking and talking about girls he’s never touched and just generally being a kid. Things change however, when one of the newspapers on Davey’s paper route informs him that kids are missing from surrounding towns.
Davey’s passion happens to be conspiracy theories and his active imagination eventually lead him to suspect that his neighbor, Mr Mackey (Rich Sommer), may be the killer everyone is looking for. His friends are skeptical but eventually they come around and begin helping Davey snoop around Mr. Mackey’s house, rooting through his trash and digging up his garden, all in pursuit Davey’s wild theory.
But is his theory really so far-fetched? Davey did see a kid in Mackey’s house who looked a lot like a missing kid on a milk carton but he says it was his nephew. Mackey does buy a lot of dirt but he also has a sizable garden. Being a cop gives him the perfect cover, he knows how to evade suspicion. But, he’s been a cop in town for years and is a friend of Davey’s parents. Then again, where does Mackey go every night if he works during the day?
This is a solid idea that combines elements of Rear Window and Stand by Me with a touch of The Goonies. Early on, everything in Summer of 84 felt like it was going to provide some comic scares, those jumpy laughs where you’re a little frightened but the jump scares are intentionally funny. I adored that aspect of Summer of 84, the film had me laughing from the beginning and I had hoped that it would stick with that tone.
It’s a solid, professionally crafted movie with a terrific core cast. The stand out for me was Woody. Woody is a sweetheart, a loyal, lovable buddy that I think we all had when we were a kid. That kind of loyal to a fault type kid. You know the one, when you get in trouble, he gets in trouble because he was there to. That’s Woody for Davey, a loyalist, a partisan, a best friend who, when things get dangerous, overcomes his fear to be at his friend’s side.
Graham Verschere is also quite good as Davey, our eyes and ears. The camera is rarely away from Davey, he is the lead character and our surrogate into the world of Summer of 84. Verschere has a wonderfully curious quality, I loved his dogged inquisitiveness. As for Eats and Farraday, the characters of the bad boy and the nerdy kid limit them in terms of interest and aside from a couple of scenes, they become rather superfluous by the end of the movie.
I want so much to explain my objection to the ending of Summer of 84 but I won’t. I don’t do spoilers in my reviews. It’s a rule and it’s not one I am going to break here. Just know that the ending of Summer of 84 is a cheap shot, an unnecessary attempt at shock and it has no place in this otherwise good-hearted movie. Be prepared for disappointment and perhaps you can get over it in a way that I simply can’t. I am angry over the end of this movie.
Summer of 84 is available via on-demand services and is playing in a few movie theaters around the country as well.
