Summer of '84

Director: François Simard, Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell
Screenwriters: Matt Leslie, Stephen J. Smith

Institute History

  • 2018 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Every serial killer is somebody’s neighbor. For 15-year-old Davey, the thought of having a serial killer in his suburban town is a scary yet exciting prospect at the start of a lazy summer. In hormonal overdrive, Davey and his friends dream of sexual conquests until the news reports of the Cape May killer. Davey convinces his friends that they must investigate, and they uncover that his next-door neighbor, an unassuming, single police officer, could be the prime suspect. Could Davey possibly be right, or is it his overactive imagination?

Directing trio François Simar, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell (Turbo Kid, 2015 Sundance Film Festival) return to Midnight with this eerily resonant coming-of-age horror flick. The throwback synth score injects the tone with fun, thrills, and an escalating danger that ultimately tracks Davey’s loss of innocence. Indeed, the ’80s setting is less about the nostalgia hard-on than an essential parallel of that Reagan-era American fear that we are not as safe as we think.

— C.D.

Screening Details

Credits

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