Summer of ’84 Trailer Is Like Stranger Things With A Serial Killer 6

[Black Panther]

The first trailer for the upcoming Summer of ’84 is another example of how the ongoing wave of ‘80s nostalgia isn’t anywhere close to being over. In what looks to be a mashup of recent ‘80s-set hits like Stranger Things and IT, the new film eschews the supernatural formula for something a little more grounded — serial killers. And while bike-riding kids in a small town on the hunt for a local killer is a great hook for any movie, the trailer for Summer of ’84 is all about recreating a bygone era on the big screen.

Written by Matt Leslie and Stephen J. Smith, and directed by François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell, who collectively go by the name RKSS and previously directed Turbo Kid. The film heads down a familiar path, as a group of young friends, played by Graham Verchere, Judah Lewis, Caleb Emery, and Cory Gruter-Andrew pass their long, carefree days aways from school and the concerns of adulthood by hunting a local serial killer, dubbed “The Cape May Slayer.”

As you can see from the trailer and the paranoia-inducing tones of its eerie synth-pop score, Summer of ’84 goes all-in on familiar character archetypes, starting with Verchere’s Davey Armstrong, the resident conspiracy theorist of the group and the one who is convinced local policeman Wayne Mackey (Mad Men and GLOW's Rich Sommer) is the killer in question. The rest of the group is similar in that regard as the other teens, along with Nikki Kaszuba (Tiera Skovbye) “scientifically the perfect woman,” are all fitted easily into archetypal slots. 

It will be interesting to see how audiences respond to the trailer — let alone the movie — in a post-Stranger Things world. That Summer of ’84 will hit theaters later this summer may have been a factor in its corner had IT not made waves in theaters just about a year ago, utilizing many of the same tropes this film is so keen to make use of. 

So far, though, it doesn’t seem as if audiences are tiring of ‘80s nostalgia, as anticipation for season 3 of Stranger Things continues to be high, while IT was a smashing success in 2017. Whether such fondness for a decade 

will translate into Summer of ’84 becoming a hit or not remains to be seen, but with the film premiering this August, it won’t be long until the answer is known. 

Summer of ’84 hits select theaters on August 10, 2018.