No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers — unless you’re stuck in summer school. Mark Harmon is nowhere in sight. Instead, we get Charlie (one-timer Simon Wallace), who arrives to class like he’s King Shit, although he’s gangly, mainlines Tic-Tacs and wears rollerblades.
Most repellent, Charlie runs a movie review website. Assumedly this keeps him up late, because he keeps drifting into sleep glorious sleep. (However, his “reviews” appear to be one phrase and a letter grade.) Every time he falls aslumber, he’s in a self-contained dream on campus, thus affording the shaggy Summer School the veneer of a horror anthology. Among its five directors is Mike P. Nelson, who graduated to bigger, better things like the 2021 Wrong Turn reboot.
In these nightmares, Charlie might encounter vampires or spider-masked furries. He could find himself the subject of a satanic sacrifice, complete with gored chicken. His teacher (Jennifer Prettyman, Zombie Dollz) and security officer (Ty Richardson) could be gun-toting Nazis, or he could be pursued by horny hillbillies who think his shirtless self looks “finger-lickin’ good.”
Regardless, each time he dies, he wakes up in class again — sometimes alone, sometimes among classmates like the bleached-blonde, Jennifer Tilly-ish Lindsey (Amy Cocchiarella, who should be the lead). It’s all a bit much and unable to sustain itself. Paired with somnambulistic pacing and pauses, the murky videography really harms engagement. And with Charlie front and center, Summer School all but challenges us to hang with it. He’s arrogant and looks like he never met a comb. Where’s Freddy Krueger when you need him?
The “shock” ending isn’t one, signaling its own approach with everything but an overweight guy in an orange vest and hard hat. Let’s just say I wonder if Charlie promised his Terry Pratchett paperbacks to anyone. You’re better off auditing actual summer school than viewing this remedial Goosebumps. To quote the movie’s poetically sassy line, “You’re welcome, dillhole.” —Rod Lott