Welcome to Tubi Tuesday. An ongoing experiment where we dig into some of the weird, underrated, and downright abysmal movies we don’t think our real life friends would let us talk at length about. At the time of writing, this movie is streaming for free on Tubi, the home of Super Bowl LIX!
We need to talk about Evan Jacobs. A filmmaker who could probably end up with double digit posts about his movies if I keep remembering to write these. He’s directed something like 70 films, including (here we go I guess) Amityville Backpack, Death Toilet (there are like four of these), Pickleball Exorcist, Amityville Backrooms, Maximum Strollerdrive, Fleas, Fleas 2, Amityville Death Toilet, and I am stopping there. I’ve seen three of Jacobs’s movies and can attest that they are basically unwatchable, and this is coming from the guy that wrote like 700 words about Attack of the Super Monsters.
That is why when I discovered Cool Summer, I knew something was deeply broken in the universe.
It appears that Jacobs took a break from making three movies a year that star the same guy and made an animated film using what I can only assume was Microsoft Paint to design the characters and backdrops. It’s genuinely baffling, and made infinitely stranger by the fact that it is really good.
The film is a classic and endearing coming of age movie about three friends that want to have one last adventure before the end of summer break. The problem is that they’re going out while a serial killer is supposedly loose in their area.
When the boys meet up with a bizarre stranger who seems way to keen on helping them out, the premise fully comes to light. Is this cool guy the serial killer, or just a young adult who remembers what it was like to be young and want to have fun?
Every new location is transitioned to with live-action POV camcorder footage that really adds to overall mood and makes this whole thing even more unique.
The movie is played entirely straight. There aren’t any weird cartoon bits or “big” breaks from realism. It’s just a vibey hangout movie with a sinister feeling of dread that builds as it goes.
I recommend this one! Which, is not like automatic with these. Tubi Tuesday is not an endorsement. Just for neutrality I’ll also not recommend Amityville Backpack. We can’t be bought!