Review: Monster Summer
Digital Platforms: Monster Summer (2024)
A film with Mel Gibson…hmmm, 30 years ago we’d all be interested, now it seems it’ll be some very cheap generic action thriller where he pops up for 4 minutes and leaves. Mel Gibson, once Hollywood’s darling, now resigned to being more or less cancelled because he’s ‘controversial’, which brings up the question, can you separate the actor from their personal life? We’ve all got our own feelings over this, here’s mine. Mel Gibson is a brilliant filmmaker, and the scene where he puts the gun in his mouth in Lethal Weapon has, and is, one of my all-time favourite bits of acting ever.
So seeing Mel have a bigger part in a film, where he actually gets to perform, is wonderful.
I can imagine a few people watching Monster Summer will see the similarities to Stranger Things, but for me it’s more of an 80s vibe with a story about a group of kids vanquishing the unseen ‘bad guy’ with a few red herrings thrown in. It’s more Goonies with some pretty scary horror. Seriously, I would not let a child watch this, it really does have some scary parts in it.
Martha’s Vineyard (which I’m sure is quite a posh place Americans go on holiday) in the ’90s, where teenager Noah (Mason Thames) is helping his mum (Nora Zehetner) run her B&B, and mucking about with his mates. He wants to be a journalist like his now dead, famous dad, and he keeps writing articles for the local rag, which never get printed.
He then becomes involved in a series of mysterious child disappearances, and when the kids turn up again, they’re catatonic. So when Noah’s best friend Ben (Noah Cottrell) goes missing, then reappears in a catatonic state, Noah and his friends to help solve the mystery.
With the help of local ‘strange person who killed his whole family’ Gene (Mel Gibson), who’s actually a retired detective with his own tragic backstory involving a missing child.
And here I will stop, as any more info and the film will be spoiled.
We really enjoyed this film, and was delighted to see Mel have a ‘real’ part and also the story itself DIDN’T have one of those annoying Hollywood “everything is okay” endings.
It fulfils its horror promise beautifully!
Monster Summer is available on Digital Platforms. Distributed by Signature Entertainment.
Review by Tina from a streaming link kindly supplied by Signature Entertainment.
