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I love a good ’80s movie, and I love a good movie that feels like an ’80s movie, so I decided to check out Monster Summer, another entry in the “kids on bikes” adventure sub-genre that released late last year.

The plot is one you’ve seen a dozen times: small town America in the summer. Kids are disappearing and there are mysterious and spooky happenings, but the adults don’t take them seriously, so it’s up to a group of plucky kids to figure this out themselves.

The film is set in Martha’s Vineyard, the same island where Jaws was filmed. I was hoping there might have been some Spielberg magic still hanging around there, but it seems after almost fifty years, it’s all gone now, leaving this movie to work on its own merits which is a hard task.

You can guess at what kind of movie this is going to be. It’s the same kind of kids adventure as all those classics, like Explorers and Super 8, except this time, the baddie is a witch who’s been attacking children and feeding on their souls. Most of the story centres on just one of the kids in the group, Noah (Mason Thames), leaving the others sidelined for most of the film.

All the things are here, despite the film being set in 1997, it still feels very 1980s, which shows how much things changed in the 21st century, with the arrival of mobile phones, where everyone can now have communication wherever they are, and record everything they see. It would be hard to make a film like this in a contemporary setting, but I’d like to see someone try, to see if there’s still any room for wonder and adventure anymore, in a smaller, less exciting world.

But for all its imagery and nostalgia and references to that past, it doesn’t have the same heart or humour as things like Super 8, or even the same kind of scares as Stranger Things. It falls somewhere on the fringes, and comes out looking more like an episode of Scooby Doo. I think this is partly intentional, to make it more “family friendly”. which I can get, but there are still a lot of holes in the incredibly thin plot. It starts off fun, with some promise, but never fulfills it. There’s a big red herring that gets fried early on, and would probably have made for a better story if stretched out, as the actual reveal of who the witch is is so ridiculous it feels like the writers made it up on the day of shooting, pulling a name at random from the cast list.

It’s saved to some extent by Mel Gibson, who’s a solid presence here. I feel he’s perfect for these roles as an older actor, not needing to fit the requirements for a traditional leading man anymore, and bringing in some weight that’s often missing from actors now.

He’s not alone, all the cast are fine in their parts, including the younger members, it’s just a shame that they aren’t given more to do. Because this isn’t a terrible movie, just an underwhelming one, that feels like it could have been a lot better with just one final redraft of the script.

Yet for all that, I did enjoy watching it. I don’t think anyone will consider it a classic in future, but there are some touching moments, some funny ones too. Yes, it’s all stuff you’ve seen before, but I don’t know, there’s something here I’d like to see more of. Maybe they aren’t the staple of family entertainment they once were, but I’d still like to see more movies like this get made.

Monster Summer is available to rent or buy on Amazon.