If you're in desperate need of a Stranger Things fix, and don't feel like waiting until 2019 for a new season, then you're in luck. Summer of '84 is a forthcoming coming-of-age horror flick that might as well be called Stranger Things With Serial Killers.

Set during the, uh, summer of 1984, four high school friends — who just so happen to be a group of outcasts who argue about Star Wars, read comic books, hit up the arcade, and ride their bikes around their sleepy suburban town — set out to find the identity of the local Cape May killer. Of course things take a dangerous turn when they discover that the serial killer they've been tracking might be Davey's (Graham Verchere) next-door neighbor. Cue the jump scares!


With its '80s nostalgia and throwback synth score, this will obviously draw a lot of comparison to Stranger Things, but here the scares are grounded in something scarier than a parallel dimension: real life. The best coming-of-age stories are about a loss of innocence, and Summer of '84 seems to be heavily influenced by the Reagan-era fear that once plagued the country. As one character says, "The suburbs are where the craziest shit happens."

Written and directed by filmmaking trio François Simar, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell — known collectively as RKSS — Summer of '84 is set to premiere at this year's Sundance Film Festival, which kicks off in Park City, Utah, next week.