Summer of 84 (2018)★★★★☆

Okay, July is definitely turning out much better than most of June! I liked this one! I was originally going to say that it was less strictly “horror” than I expected (especially considering the cover art!), but the “horror” definitely picked up towards the end. Honestly this movie was so much fun.

I love the 80s setting. The 80s aesthetics are well done, but I especially loved the 80s music, and especially the after-school special style tones that play while Davey and Nikki are talking to each other.

I thought the character building for the kids was really well done (and that all the kids delivered excellent performances!), and I genuinely cared about what was going to happen to them AND how the mystery was going to end. I thought Rich Sommer was perfectly cast.

There are some genuinely tense moments in this movie, and some genuinely scary events, but mostly this is a whole lot of fun. I’d recommend this to fans of mysteries, especially if you were a fan as a kid, fans of the 80s, and even some folks who aren’t generally fans of horror movies (but be warned – spoiler alert – there’s kind of a gory ending…). I liked it!