Culture Representation: Taking place in Edgartown, Massachusetts, in 2000, the horror film “Monster Summer” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A group of teens and an ex-cop try to solve the mystery of an apparent witch who is targeting children for spells and kidnapping.
Culture Audience: “Monster Summer” will appeal mainly to people who like watching teen-oriented mysteries about the supernatural and don’t mind if the screenwriting and some of the acting are substandard.
Julian Lerner, Mason Thames and Abby James Witherspoon in “Monster Summer” (Photo courtesy of Pastime Pictures)
Corny to a fault, “Monster Summer” is a lightweight horror movie about a group of teens and an ex-cop trying to solve a supernatural mystery involving a witch. Amateurish acting and a weak screenplay lower the quality of the film. “Monster Summer” can be watchable to some viewers, but there are enough cringeworthy moments for the movie to not be worth the time for anyone looking for a compelling and interesting mystery story.
Directed by Davd Henrie and written by Bryan Schulz and Cornelius Uliano, “Monster Summer” takes place during the summer of 2000, in the Martha’s Vineyard small city of Edgartown, Massachusetts. It’s somewhat fitting that this movie takes place in 2000, because a lot of “Monster Summer” looks like a very outdated made-for-TV movie in a world where we now have Netflix’s “Stranger Things.” Much of the story’s mystery is clumsily told.
In “Monster Summer,” the protagonist is Noah Reed (played by Mason Thames), who’s about 13 or 14 years old. Noah, who is an aspiring journalist, lives with his kindergarten-aged sister Lilly Reed (played by Emma Fasano) and widowed mother Abby Reed (played by Nora Zehetner), who operates a bed-and-breakfast business from her home. The family is grieving over the death of Mason’s father, who was a journalist/writer. Like a lot of kids in Edgartown, Noah wants to eventually move out of Edgartown and do something ambitious with his life when he’s old enough to get his own place.
Noah (who is intuitive and likeable) is on a Martha’s Vineyard Little League baseball team with his three best friends: neurotic Eugene Wexler (played by Julian Lerner), tomboyish Sammy Devers (played by Abby James Witherspoon) and confident Ben Driskel (played by Noah Cottrell), who is the star player on the team. One day, all four pals are caught trespassing in the shed of a cranky neighbor named Gene Carruthers (played by Mel Gibson), a retired police detective who has a reputation for being a mysterious loner.
Gene, who is divorced, has a tragedy in his past: In 1965, his 5-year-old son disappeared. Gene was under suspicion for this disappearance, but no arrests were ever made, and his son was never found. Gene’s marriage did not survive this family tragedy. Gene’s ex-wife is still alive but hasn’t been in contact with Gene for years.
Noah has a semi-secret crush on a schoolmate named Ellie Evans (played by Lilah Pate), but Ellie is attracted to Ben, who asks her out on a date. Ellie eagerly says yes. Ben doesn’t find about Noah’s crush on Ellie until after Ben asks Ellie on the date, and Noah graciously tells Ben that he’s okay with Ben and Ellie dating. Ben and Ellie go swimming in a nearby lake for their first date.
But something bizarre happens on this date: Ellie and Ben both see what looks like an elderly witch when they’re underwater. The witch attacks Ellie and Ben. And the next thing you know, Ben is recovering in a hospital and is soon discharged.
After this attack, Ben seems to be in a daze, and he barely talks. Ellie tells Noah that she and Ben were definitely attacked by a witch, who cackled right before a bright light flashed where they were. Ben isn’t talking much, but his version of the story is different from Ellie’s. According to Ben, there was no witch and everything was an accident. Ellie’s story sounds far-fetched, especially to people who don’t believe in the supernatural.
Noah tells Gene about this strange occurrence. Gene doubts Ellie’s story that Ben was pulled down in the water by a mysterious force because there’s no physical evidence that Ben had these types of injuries. But then, another “witch attack” happens to another teen named Kevin Lampkey (played by Gavin Bedell), who was at a campfire party in a wooded area called No Man’s Land, when he was lured into a secluded place by the witch disguised as a teenage girl. Kevin also become nearly mute after this encounter.
It’s enough to convince Gene to join Noah in this investigation because Gene confesses that he believes his missing son might have also been kidnapped by something supernatural. Other characters that appear in the movie are Miss Halverson (played by Lorraine Bracco), a bed-and-breakfast guest in Noah’s family home; a baseball umpire (played by Patrick Renna) who is always at the teenagers’ Little League games; and Edgar Palmer (played by Kevin James), the cynical editor of the local newspaper.
“Monster Summer” has an awkwardly constructed story that lurches from one scene to the next. One of the worst scenes is when Noah and his pals confront Miss Halverson when they suspect her of being the witch. Thames and Gibson (who seems to be permanently typecast as playing grouchy characters) show capable acting skills, but many of the supporting cast members don’t have this level of talent. Longtime actors Bracco and James aren’t in the movie for very long to make much of a difference.
The mystery in “Monster Summer” just isn’t very interesting. By the time secrets are revealed, and there’s an inevitable showdown scene, it all looks haphazardly thrown together. “Monster Summer” isn’t a complete waste of time, but viewers’ time is much better spent on the abundance of higher-quality entertainment about supernatural mysteries.
Pastime Pictures released “Monster Summer” in U.S. cinemas on October 4, 2024. The movie was released on digital and VOD on November 8, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the romantic comedy “This Is the Year” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latinos and African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: On the verge of graduating from high school, a nerdy student tries to win over his dream girl, even though she already has a boyfriend.
Culture Audience: “This Is the Year” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching predictable and unimaginative teen romantic comedies.
Gregg Sulkin and Alyssa Jirrels in “This Is the Year” (Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment)
“This Is the Year” is yet another vapid teen romantic comedy about a nerd who’s pining over his dream girl. It rips off the same formula that’s already been done by countless other movies with the same type of story. There’s almost nothing that’s very charming about “This Is the Year,” as it lumbers along to its predictable ending. Expect to see a lot of annoying characters played by people who look too old to be in high school.
Directed by David Henrie, “This Is the Year” is one of those movies that was made primarily by family members so they could give each other jobs in a movie. David Henrie’s brother Lorenzo James Henrie is the movie’s star: He plays the dorky protagonist. One of the movie’s producers is James “Jim” Henrie, the father of David Henrie and Lorenzo James Henrie. It’s undoubtedly nepotism, but the result is an amateurish movie that has absolutely no originality in the story arc and how everything ends.
David Henrie co-wrote the “This Is the Year” screenplay with Sienna Aquilini, Pepe Portillo and Bug Hall. All that means is that it took four people to put their names on a screenplay that uses many of the same ideas that numerous other teen romantic comedies have already used. You can predict in your sleep what’s going to happen in this movie.
How many times have we seen this plot in teen romantic comedies? A socially awkward outcast at high school has a secret crush on the girl of his dreams, who’s pretty, popular, and barely knows that he exists, or she wants to put him in the “friend zone.” In many cases, she already has a boyfriend or a love interest who is the nerd’s chief rival. The nerd comes up with a scheme to win over her affections, but various obstacles and embarrassments get in the way.
Meanwhile, if the nerd has a teenage girl who’s his platonic best friend, she helps him in his quest to date the dream girl. However, things happen where it becomes obvious who will eventually end up together at the end. Someone has an “a-ha” moment, and there’s a race against time for someone to reveal true feelings to someone else. It’s all so cliché and boring.
If teen romantic comedies stick to this formula like hack filmmaker glue, the movie can sometimes be enjoyable if the performances are good and if the screenplay has hilarious dialogue. Unfortunately, “This Is the Year” has none of that. Adding to this movie’s lack of authenticity, the filmmakers couldn’t be bothered to cast actors who look believably close to being the ages of high school students when these actors are supposed to be portraying high school students.
In “This Is the Year,” Lorenzo James Henrie is Josh, the geeky central character. Josh is close to graduating from an unnamed high school in an unnamed U.S. city. (“This Is the Year” was actually filmed in Alabama, but no one in this movie sounds like they’re from Alabama.) Josh lives next door to his best friend Molly (played by Vanessa Marano), who is homeschooled. Josh and Molly both work part-time at a local movie theater. Molly is intelligent and has a fun-loving attitude toward life. She completely understands Josh and vice versa. (You know where this is going, of course.)
Josh’s only other close friend is a fellow student named Mikey (played by Jake Short), who can be somewhat bratty and sarcastic. Josh and Mikey are in the same graduating class at their high school. Mikey lives with his older brother Donnie (played by Bug Hall), who is in his 30s. Donnie became Mikey’s guardian, ever since their widower father ran off with a woman shortly after Donnie and Mikey’s mother died of cancer. This abandonment has left emotional scars on the brothers that they don’t really want to talk about with anyone.
Josh’s last big assignment for an unnamed class is to write an essay about what he learned from his experiences in high school. The teacher of the class is Mr. Elmer (played by Jeff Garlin), who is concerned because Josh hasn’t handed in the essay by the deadline. If Josh doesn’t complete this assignment, he won’t be able to graduate. When Mr. Elmer talks to Josh about it, Josh insists that he can’t finish the essay until he’s experienced the last day of high school.
Why does Josh feel this way? As Josh explains to Mr. Elmer, he’s obsessed with a 1980s teen drama movie called “Fireworks at Beaumont Prep.” In that movie, the teen protagonist had a high school experience that changed dramatically when he got the girl of his dreams on his last day of high school. Josh feels like he can relate to this character, which is portrayed by an actor called Patrick J. Michael (played by “This Is the Year” director David Henrie).
Josh tells Mr. Elmer, “I can’t describe my high school experience yet because it’s not over.” Mr. Elmer gives Josh an extension of a few days to finish the essay. His essay is now due on a Sunday, which we all know will be the same day that Josh will have something life-changing to write about by the time this movie ends. What could possibly happen in a few days that could change Josh’s life?
It just so happens that Josh has found out that Mikey and Donnie’s cousin Zoey (played by Alyssa Jirrels) has moved back into the area because of her parents’ recent divorce. Josh hasn’t seen Zoey since they were very young kids, and she didn’t make a good impression on him then because Zoey bit him at a party. However, Josh changes his mind about Zoey when he sees what she looks like now: Zoey has blossomed into a stereotypical “dream girl” who’s in these types of movies: blonde, pretty and thin. Josh is instantly smitten.
There’s a big problem for Josh though: Zoey already has a boyfriend. He’s a stuck-up British guy in his 20s named Kale (played by Gregg Sulkin), who is a rich and well-connected aspiring artist. After Zoey graduates from high school, Zoey and Kale have plans to move to Los Angeles, where Kale wants to pursue his artist career.
And what do you know: To Josh’s dismay, Zoey tells him that the school is letting her graduate a few days earlier than the rest of the class, and she’s moving to Los Angeles the next day. The timeline in this movie is weird and makes no sense. In one scene, Josh and Zoey see each other for the first time in several years. When Josh is at school after his awestruck “reunion” with Zoey, he has a meeting with Mr. Elmer about his essay being due. It’s supposed to be about a less than a week before Josh’s last day of high school.
But then, a few scenes later, Zoey tells Josh that she’s graduating early. That means (1) either Josh didn’t know that Zoey was a student at the school for quite some time or (2) Zoey is having one of the shortest school stints ever as a transfer student. The first scenario is highly unlikely since Zoey is the cousin of Josh’s close friend Mikey, who would’ve mentioned it if she had moved back in the area months or weeks ago. The second scenario is more likely what the filmmakers want viewers of this movie to believe.
When Zoey and Josh see each other for the first time in years, he’s carpooling with Mikey, while Donnie is driving. Donnie and Mikey stop over at Zoey’s place to pick her up to take her to school. The timeline is off-kilter and frankly quite stupid in how quickly all of these things have happened to Josh in just a few days: He discovered that Zoey is in his same graduating class, she’s graduating early, and she’s moving to Los Angeles with Kale the next day. And somehow, Josh thinks he’s in love with Zoey and can win her over in this short period of time. It’s not romantic. It’s creepy and obsessive.
Zoey and Kale are taking a road trip for their relocation to Los Angeles. Josh is a big fan of the alternative rock group Lovely the Band, and he finds out that Zoey is a big fan too. And what a coincidence: Lovely the Band is headlining at an upcoming sold-out festival. (Lovely the Band has a cameo performance in the movie, because you already know that the characters are going to this festival.) Zoey doesn’t have the wristband tickets needed to go to the concert, so Josh lies and tells her that he has these wristbands. Josh’s scheme is to somehow find a way to get Zoey to go with him to this concert, which will take place over a weekend. And he doesn’t have a car.
Meanwhile, Donnie has recently bought a dirty and beat-up food truck because he and Mikey have plans to start a food truck business together after Mikey graduates from high school. Donnie says he’s going to refurbish the truck, and he expects Mikey to help him. The truck has a “Star Wars”-inspired name with a bad pun: The Milleniyum Falcon, because the food is supposed to be “yummy.” However, Mikey has a secret: He applied to Texas A&M University and he got accepted. Mikey is afraid to tell Donnie, because he doesn’t want Donnie to feel like Mikey will abandon Donnie for college.
Josh is desperate for transportation to the concert. Apparently, he doesn’t have a car at home that he could use, and he doesn’t have the money to rent a car. It should come as no surprise that Josh lies to Mikey and Donnie by saying that he has wristbands for all of them to see Lovely the Band, and they should take the Milleniyum Falcon on a road trip to the concert—on one condition: Zoey needs to go with them too. Josh says that the wristbands will be there for him to pick up at the venue’s will call center.
Molly knows about Josh’s deceitful scheme, and she insists on going on the road trip too. Molly says that she wants to make sure that nothing goes wrong with Josh. Sure, Molly. Whatever you say.
And what about Zoey’s boyfriend Kale and their plans to move to Los Angeles? Kale suddenly gets an opportunity to meet with someone who can help him with his career. And the meeting is around the same time that Zoey wants to go on the road trip to the concert. Gee, what a coincidence.
Kale isn’t too pleased about Zoey spending time with what he thinks are a bunch of dorks, but he’s more concerned about advancing his career. Zoey is 18 and a legal adult, so there’s nothing that can stop her from going. (Parents are practically non-existent in this movie.) And so, Zoey ends up going on this road trip with Josh, Molly, Mikey and Donnie in a junkpile food truck named the Milleniyum Falcon. You can easily figure out what happens from then on.
There’s sort of a bizarre subplot with “This Is the Year” director David Henrie portraying a guy in his late 20s or early 30s named Sebastian, who meets these travelers during the trip. Sebastian is supposed to be an exact look-alike for Patrick J. Michael, the “Fireworks at Beaumont Prep” actor whom Josh idolizes. (Josh and other people repeatedly mention the physical resemblance.) Sebastian immediately fixates on Molly and makes it known that he wants to date her. It’s kind of inappropriate because she’s supposed to be a high school student, and he knows it.
Yes, technically Molly could be the age of consent (which is 18 in most U.S. states), but it’s still an icky part of the movie because Molly is not emotionally mature enough to be dating a man that age. Out of all of the movie’s principal actors who are depicting high school students, Marano is the only one who comes the closest to looking like she could be in high school. All the other “high school students” in the movie look old enough to be closer to the age of 30 instead of 18.
There are many other unrealistic and dopey scenarios that take place in “This Is the Year.” The entire movie is built on a flimsy premise anyway. And viewers won’t have much sympathy for Josh and his pathetic lies. Zoey is your basic bland beauty in movies like this one. Josh’s attraction to her is obviously mostly physical, which makes him look almost as shallow as conceited Kale.
The only characters in the movie who don’t come across as people who deserve to have duct tape put over their mouths are Molly and Donnie, but even they have moments that are irritating to watch. Molly goes along with Josh’s horrible con game, which puts her on a certain level of sleazy. Donnie is harmless and goofy, but he really needs to get a life if he’s hanging out this much with high schoolers in his free time.
In addition to the horrendous screenplay, “This Is the Year” doesn’t have any acting performances that rise above mediocre. The movie’s comedy is very phony and forced. And there are absolutely no surprises at all. Well, maybe one big surprise: This movie is so hackneyed and boring, you might be surprised if you can get through it all without falling asleep.
Vertical Entertainment released “This Is the Year” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on September 24, 2021.
