Summer of 84 (2018)

The 80s are all the rage right now, especially in horror. From Stranger Things to It, audiences are reminiscing about scary stories from their neon coloured childhoods. Adding to this is the polarizing film Summer of 84, a horror tale about teens investigating a serial killer they believe to be the cop living next door brought to us by the Montreal film making collective known as RKSS. Some are praising it as unsettling and original. Others call it anti-climactic and slow moving. After watching 84 I lean toward the former. I found it to be a rather disconcerting experience.

The story feels intentionally cliched. The young teen boys at the centre of our story are desperate to show they can be men, flirting with toxic masculinity but fumbling it and instead being decent little people instead. They are experiencing that long lost nostalgic relic, the lazy summer spent on bicycles through their suburban neighbourhood. The synthed score serenades this classic feeling period piece.

And as they crush on the older girl next door they discover an adventure. They go investigating. The film purposefully uses jump scares (cause that's how kids transitioning from boys to men interact with each other, not because the story is cheating us) as a way of letting out the tension, a tension which starts subtly in the opening scenes as the main character narrates about how sinister the suburbs truly are. "Even serial killers live next door to somebody."

That's where I feel the magic of this film is found. Underneath all the expected beats lies a darkness which is felt by the audience. The way civilization papers over a horror underlying everything. And it builds to a finale which punctuates this brilliantly. Horror movies often suffer from anti-climactic endings, where the film can't quite deliver on the promise it was building. But 84 shows us it is committed to its idea. Many who don't like this film seem to misread the ending or perhaps don't get why it is quite so scary. For me it was highly unsettling and therefore also very satisfying. It was better than the ending I was expecting and offered much more. I can't say anything about it so you just have to see if for yourself.

And perhaps the film could lead to a pay off in a sequel called Summer of 2024... just saying.

Summer of 84
Starring: Graham Verchere, Judah Lewis, Caleb Emery, Cory Gruter-Andrew, Tiera Skovbye, Rich Sommer
Directors: RKSS
Writers: Matt Leslie, Stephen J. Smith