Monster summer stars Mason Thames as Noah, a teenager who is trying to solve a mystery involving a Witch. When Noah’s friend and baseball teammate, Ben, played by Noah Cottrel is attacked by the Witch, he sets out on a path to get his friend’s spirit back and maybe help other kids along the way. Noah has two other friends Sammy, played by Abby James Witherspoon, and Eugene, played by Julian Lerner. His friends all play on the same baseball team but they are reluctant to help Noah as they don’t believe the witch is real.
While they are riding their bikes they come across a house in the neighborhood where Gene, an older gentleman, the “get off my lawn” type, played by Mel Gibson frightens anyone who comes on his property. He ends up helping Noah investigate the witch as Gene was a former detective and has experience solving crimes.
This movie gave Sandlot (Hamilton, Patrick Renna is even in it as an umpire!) meets Stranger Things vibes, definitely erring on the side of “spooky” and not so much comedy. I did feel like the jokes landed and there was enough humor to keep you entertained and laughing. The scary elements were pretty good too, I felt like I was watching an episode of Goosebumps, if you’re trying to gauge how scary it is.
I would say that this is maybe not for young kids, it is rated PG-13 and there are some more mature elements and things mentioned.
Overall I enjoyed this movie, I liked the twist with the witch that kept it more modern and was pretty unique. The acting was good and I like Mason Thames as a main lead, I think he’s got a big acting career ahead of him. I did think there needed to be more of a friends team up and let’s figure this out together theme. I think it would’ve been much more enjoyable to have Sammy and Eugene backing up Noah and investigate how to save Ben together. Gene would still fit in too, there would be more interaction in general. Also this needed more female presence in the film, besides the Witch, Sammy was one of the only female protagonists and she wasn’t really in the film much.
I would watch this movie again and recommend it if you like the Sandlot/Stranger Things/Goosebumps type content. Movies that are scary but not “too” scary. This might even make it to my Halloween movie rotation every year.
MONSTER SUMMER is in Theaters on October 4th, 2024.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Ashley Kethley (Contributing Editor) is a frequent traveler currently living in San Diego. She's a super nerd who enjoys all kinds of movies and doesn't always think the book was better. Click Here to check out Ashley's Articles.