I managed to catch this when it blew through Alamo for a week. Now it’s available for download and I figure Summer will be on a streaming service soon, the question is which.
Given the success of It and Stranger Things, there will likely be a flood of imitators trying cash in on the early-to-mid Eighties vibe as they try and fail to recreate what made the horror movies of that era successful. Summer thankfully pulled it off by combining elements of Rear Window, Goonies and It.
The story revolves around Davey, an awkward teenager who lives in a typical suburb during the summer of 1984. He and his three friends like to hang out in the old treehouse they played in when they were kids, now it’s for sharing porno magazines and gossiping. They’re rather typical for their age at this era (I should know, I was 15-16 then too); they play video games, they argue about Star Wars and at night they play manhunt with other kids (we called it flashlight tag back in Springfield, IL).
One evening during a game of manhunt, Davey sees his neighbor Mr. Mackey with a guest through a window. He doesn’t think much of it, probably his nephew. Then some days later, at breakfast, he sees the guest’s face on a milk carton as a missing person (this was a trend in the Eighties to help locate missing children). Davey then notices Mackey’s gardening hobby and convinces himself that his neighbor is a serial killer. Convincing his friends and family is an uphill battle but Davey’s rebuttal is compelling, serial killers are somebody’s neighbor. The parents don’t buy it, besides, Mr. Mackey is a cop with a great reputation in the community. They conclude Davey has let his hobby involving conspiracies run amuck with his imagination. He has better luck with his friends as they all join in on following Mackey around, logging the neighbor’s daily routines.
I’ll stop there because I don’t want to spoil it any further. The key to the movie is how it is similar to Rear Window in how Davey and the gang’s results are inconclusive. Are they right or wrong? Is Mackey just a boring cop or is he a predator in disguise? You have to watch the movie to see how it plays out and I guarantee the ending was satisfying regardless of expectations.
Alamo Extras: A guy bathing in a tub of Nutella (ick); PSAs telling kids not to do drugs, Pee Wee warning about crack and how much coke costs in real items (e.g. a boombox); trailers for Invaders from Mars (the Eighties remake) and a TV movie starring Dennis Weaver addicted to coke; scene from Modern Problems of Chevy Chase snorting something up; other scenes from things I didn’t recognize involving coke; montage of Nic Cage doing “the face” and cursing; a Japanese show that entailed a frisbee golfer throwing a specially designed pizza from an apartment’s balcony, across a space into another apartment’s microwave oven, he did it in four attempts!