Hey, do you like ’80s movies? Because François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell, a directorial team known collectively as RKSS, surely do, and they can prove it. Their latest collaborative effort Summer of ‘84 is a horror-thriller overloaded with references to period favorites (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Gremlins, Return of the Jedi, The Goonies, and about a dozen more where those come from) and contemporary homages, particularly the Netflix series Stranger Things. This is well-trodden territory for the Canadian trio, whose previous film, 2015’s Turbo Kid, was a dystopian action-comedy that borrowed heavily from Mad Max 2, Big Trouble in Little China and the Mel Brooks cult item Solarbabies. Summer of ‘84 has a different tone than Turbo Kid, and it adheres to an alternate set of genre tropes, but it’s essentially a spiritual sequel, a rehash of what was itself a rehash and whose ultimate accomplishment is the way in which it reminds us of the better movies that inspired it.
The film’s biggest issue – the same issue that plagues most of the nostalgia porn that’s invaded American pop culture in the last six or seven years – is its lack of insight into the era it’s emulating. If Summer of ‘84 and its ilk are to be believed, the entirety of the ’80s was the sum of video games, comic books and the smart alecks who loved them, to say nothing of the invasive corporatization and “greed is good” ethos that transformed virtually every facet of American life. (It’s probably the only reason the ’80s, as a pop culture concept, persists so incessantly today.) Screenwriters Matt Leslie and Stephen J. Smith seem to set their sights on the concept of suburbia, with protagonist Davey Armstrong (Graham Verchere) telling us via offscreen narration that “it might all seem normal and routine on the surface, but the suburbs are where the craziest shit happens,” although there’s no real consideration of how suburban America life did or did not live up to the standards set in, say, the 1950s, or any time frame, for that matter. It’s all window dressing, and familiar window dressing, at that. (Hello, Blue Velvet.)
If there’s comfort in familiarity, though, you can find it in Summer of ‘84. The story centers on a group of horny teenagers – the aforementioned Davey, alongside a crew of stock characters: the rebel (Judah Lewis), the nerd (Cory Gruter-Andrew) and the fat kid (Caleb Emery) – as they begin to suspect their dull neighbor, Wayne (Mad Men’s Rich Sommer), might actually be the “Cape May Strangler,” a serial killer who has murdered more than a dozen boys their age in their small Oregon county. They start by spying on him, Rear Window-style, but soon they’re tailing him around town, digging through his trash and having heated debates about the likelihood that this boring guy is actually a mass murderer. (When they aren’t talking about girls and UFOs, that is.) This should all be catnip for genre fans, and if the only thing you like more than references and homages to other movies is having a “theory” about secret or not-so-secret aspects of a film’s narrative, then Summer of ’84 will surely have your number.
To their credit, the filmmakers do a good job of moving the plot along, keeping the story free of too many subplots and focusing on the mystery at the center, which they deepen and complicate as the stakes get higher. They couple that with some surprisingly disarming black comedy. The scene in which the boys are forced to apologize to Wayne for stalking him and accusing him of murder is uncomfortable and hilarious and perfectly menacing, not to mention legitimately scary, something Stranger Things has never really accomplished. Even if you’re likely to have the conclusion pegged by the time it’s all said and done, getting there is at least mildly enjoyable, even if you’re also questioning the overall point. There are no wheels reinvented here, nothing novel introduced or even remotely attempted. Summer of ’84 can be fun, but so can Friday the 13th and The Monster Squad and Fright Night and all the rest. Just watch them instead.
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