October is here, and the tide of horror films is at the shores. However, most of them will be too extreme or dark for the younger audience; such demographic gap is well served by the new film Monster Summer. Using a winning cast leads a summery throwback flick that recalls Steven Spielberg (and his Amblin Entertainment) and hard-core Disney title Hocus Pocus. This isn’t a film aimed at younger horror enthusiasts yearning for some scares and blood (there’s Terrifier 3 and Smile 2 for that), but those or any family who just wants to ease into the Halloween season without inviting nightmares.
Mason Thames (incredible in The Black Phone) is very charming and appears to be a darker version of Finn Wolfhard in Monster summer. He plays the title role a teenage boy named noah who spends his summer baseball-playing and biking with his friends and typing in a treehouse. Noah is an aspiring journalist, following in the footsteps of his late father, an investigation journalist. And so when peculiar activities erupt in his neighborhood, he is the first one eager to seek and understand the new story.
Meaningful deep water and creepy water though this one is, it is probably as disturbing as the film gets till its final 20 minutes, and is a riveting what-a-way to present the horror of the region. David Henrie is quite familiar with how to make kid friendly entertainment, as an actor on Wizards of Waverly Place and That’s So Raven. He finds a good blend of scary and good fun filled adventurousness, spices it up with some sadness and coming of age sweetness somewhere in between.
That opprtunely comes from Mel Gibson’s character Gene, a retired officer of the law who has been perceived as some monster’s condos or the children. They peddle past his fenced house and gaze in. Guess who the murderlist Gene has buries in his fantasy is? It was little wonder that he is single. As Noah, feeling remorse for invading his space and understanding that in order to protect his friend and the others he has to enlist the aid of the older man, they come to bond, an unusual friendship exists between hills and moss. Gene has lost a child, Noah a father. Each of them finds a missing piece of the puzzle in each other’s being that the connection between the actors is believeable and quite unusual.
At this point, Monster Summer primarily revolves around Gene and the company of Noah as they inch ever closer towards solving the mystery of the monster and unveiling the truth about the happenings within the town. There is quite a bit of good, low-key character work on Gibson’s part here and this is the latest in many continuous small projects. Maybe he’s in some sort of competition to raise funds to shoot that Passion of the Christ 2, or a mini-series about The Siege of Malta. After all, some of his most recent films have been embarrassingly low budget video releases. But here (and in his recent film Desperation Road) Gibson seems to be pushing 60 but is unusually wise for this age. They’re quieter, nicer performances.
Thames is still very much involved in the character, which is good given the gung-ho gumption Noah has. Due to such characterisation, Thames appears to be quite over-aged, but he is the pleasure to see even then. Monster Summer, on the other hand, kind of treats all other characters as nonexistent. Noah has two more young friend who are so forgettable; there is his mom, who is played by the deeply underappreciated Norah Zehetner and is present only a couple of times and the same with Norah Zehetner; to top it all, Kevin James appears literally from nowhere, and has no comic timing, rather acts normal for two very short scenes. A small world exists, but only in small pieces.
Noah Peacocks’ other gruesome hobbys in Monster Summer & the short Patrick Renna’s cameo in the film including the fact that they cast Patrick Renna for old- umpire in baseball matches specific to Noah Peacocks’s games. It’s like it’s out of the time zone of the film, recalling that of Kids baseball movie featuring Patrick Renna in the Sandlot about 30 years back which seeks to explain the style of Monster Summer – childish and touching homage for those who grew up watching classic films not in the maimed versions. And they say it is a truly lost cause. Monsters Summer was picture screened by Pastime Pictures & is open to screenings now in Hisar.
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