‘Monster Summer’ Has Elements of Magic without a Spark

Monster Summer

★ ★ ½

‘Monster Summer’ aims to recapture the nostalgic stories where close-knit bands of older kids work together to solve a mystery in their small town where interesting things never happen. Prime examples are The Goonies (1985), Stand by Me (1986), and more recently, the hit Netflix series Stranger Things.

The magic in each of the above examples had little, if anything, to do with the mystery itself. The intrigue was with how each character brought their own unique personalities, quirks, qualities and limitations to the group. The characters were interesting both inside and outside of their groups. Stories were more about the journey itself and how characters learn and discover things on the adventure that help them as they grow to adulthood.

That magic is somewhat lost in Monster Summer. We have all of the necessary ingredients but very little chemistry between the characters. The screenplay feels more focused on getting them from one point in the story to another with little growth along the way. As such, any backstory that could emotionally connect us to them generally falls flat.

Mason Thomas, Julian Lerner, Noah Cottrell, and Abby James Witherspoon
© Pastime Pictures

The leader of this group is Noah (Mason Thomas). He’s an aspiring writer who just landed a small column in the local paper where he writes about conspiratorial stories around town. His editor (Kevin James) tells him he can’t print those stories, so he should focus his efforts elsewhere.

The group of friends find themselves passing the home of Gene (Mel Gibson), the town recluse, who has an unending list of rumors attached to him. Noah and his friends observe Gene retrieve something from the ground in his yard, so they decide to get closer to see what it is. Gene quickly and predictably notices them, and they run off screaming.

Mel Gibson as Gene
© Pastime Pictures

Meanwhile, an entity in the local forest is attacking children and leaving them in a catatonic state. When this happens to a member of their group, Eugene (Julian Lerner), Noah forms his group of fellow baseball players to find out what happened.

Gene turns out to be a father mourning the loss of his son and just wants to be left alone. He’s also a retired police detective. It doesn’t take long for Noah and Gene to start working together to find out who’s attacking kids in the forest.

Certainly, this has the makings of a fun summer adventure romp with coming-of-age humor backed by a scary story. All of the pieces are there, but the presentation is more paint-by-numbers than an exciting journey.

The dynamics among the characters lack any real chemistry, the dialogue is patently routine and the story is old-hat without any intriguing tricks up its sleeve. In the end, Monster Summer plays out more like an after-school special than a cinematic journey.

Adventure, Horror, Fantasy, Mystery & Thriller