Monster Summer (2024)

Monster Summer (2024) Full Recap

Late one night in the woods of New Hampshire, a little boy creeps through the trees in his bare feet. Something out there is calling to him. There's a blinding flash of white light. Hours later, a police officer spots a kid wandering along the side of the road. It's Ronnie Harlo, the boy who went missing.

He's alive, but his eyes are completely empty. Summer 1997. On the island of Martha's Vineyard, a teenager named Noah Reed spends every free minute chasing stories. He wants to be a journalist like his father who died a few years ago. His mom, Abby, runs a bed and breakfast out of their house and never has time for his ball games.

That morning, a new guest shows up in a long black dress and a wide black hat. Her name is Miss Halverson, and all she needs is a place to park her bike. Noah's next stop is the island paper, the Gazette. The editor, Edgar Palmer, lets him write a little column, but he won't print Noah's latest piece about a peeping tom.

Families come from all over the country to vacation here. Edgar says families come to the vineyard because it's the safest summer spot in America. When they open his paper, they want sunshine and lollipops. He tells Noah to bring him a story he can actually run. That afternoon, Noah's little league team is down to its last chance.

His best friend, Ben Driscoll, steps up to the plate with two outs. Ben swings and the ball sails over the fence. Home run. Their team wins the season opener and the whole bench pours onto the field. After the game, Noah rides off with Ben and their two other friends, Eugene and Sammy.

Eugene does a John F. Kennedy voice everywhere he goes because he plans to be president one day. They stop at a tall wooden fence. Behind it lives old man Kurthers whose wife and son supposedly vanished without a trace. Noah smells a front page story. Through a gap in the boards, they spot the old man digging a hole in his yard.

Noah climbs over the fence and the others follow him in. They sneak into the old man's shed and start poking around. Then something moves in the dark. The kid's bolt for the fence, screaming. Noah makes it out, but he realizes his backpack is still back there and his notebook is inside it.

That night, Ben climbs up into Noah's treehouse with a surprise. It's a Red Sox jersey, so Noah will have something to wear to their first game at Fenway Park. Noah wonders out loud if he'll ever get off this island. Ben tells him he's going to be a great journalist. He's going for a night swim at the jumping bridge with a girl from school named Ellie, and he's bringing fireworks he swiped from his dad.

He asks Noah to come along, but Noah says he can't. At the jumping bridge, Ben and Ellie light the first fireworks of the summer. Then, Ellie spot someone up on the bridge. It's an old woman standing alone in the dark and watching them. Ellie wants to leave right away. The woman dives into the water.

A second later, Ben gets yanked under. Ellie screams his name over and over, but the water goes still. The next morning, Ben's mom finds him back home alive. The doctor tells his mom there isn't a scratch on him. His scans are clean and his lungs are fine. Everyone agrees he got caught in a rip current.

His mom blames herself for letting him be out there alone. Noah rushes over to see him. He jokes that Ben might even make the 6:00 news. Ben doesn't laugh. He doesn't answer. He just sits there staring at nothing. Noah tracks Ellie down at the pier. She says the current had nothing to do with it.

The old woman jumped into the water, but whatever pulled Ben under was something else. There was a flash of light and she heard cackling. When she closes her eyes, she still hears it. To her, it sounded like a witch. Ellie already told the police and her parents, and nobody believed a word.

Back home, Noah finds old man Kurthers waiting on his porch with the missing back. Pack. He found Noah's initials inside it. He's also read the notebook. Every theory Noah wrote about him is in there, including the dead body in the yard. It turns out the old man used to be a cop, a detective named Jean.

Noah sees his chance. He tells Gene his friend was nearly killed at the jumping bridge and that an old lady, a witch, pulled him under. Gene asks if he saw this witch himself. Noah admits he didn't. Gene tells him to go call Fox Moulder. He's retired. Abby sends Noah upstairs with a tray for Miss Halverson.

The woman asked not to be disturbed, so he leaves it outside her door and listens. Across the island, Jean sits alone in the dark. In the meantime, he's watching old home movies of a little boy named Hank, laughing and holding a toy airplane. Then the evening news comes on with a story about Ben.

At Noah's next game, Noah strikes out and yells at the umpire. This is baseball, not daycare. The umpire threatens to throw him out. After the game, Gene is standing by the fence. He tells Noah his hips should lead his hands, and that's where all his power comes from. Then, he agrees to talk to Noah's friend.

He doesn't believe him. He'll just talk. At Ben's house, Gene checks the boy's arms and neck. Ben answers like a robot. He tried to swim back, he says, but the water kept pulling him out. There was a bright flash, and then he was lying on the beach. Gene tells Noah that if someone held Ben under, there'd be bruises and scratches and there's nothing and there's no such thing as witches.

Noah stays behind. He asks Ben why he lied since Ellie told him everything. Ben says he didn't lie. So Noah hands him a piece of his favorite candy. Ben chews it, makes a face, and spits it out. Gross. Whatever came back from that bridge, it isn't really Ben. At home, Noah tries to tell his mom something is wrong with Ben, and the two of them end up shouting.

Out in the hall, his little sister, Emily, sits on the stairs with her hands over her ears. Miss Halverson finds her there. She tells Emily that when her own family argued, she would close her eyes and think happy thoughts like in Peter Pan. She smiles and asks the little girl what she loves most.

Noah tells Eugene and Sammy that Ben came home, but he isn't Ben anymore. It's like something took a piece of him away. Eugene has had enough. He says witches aren't real. And Noah has been looking for evil around every corner ever since his dad died. What's he got to do with this?

Noah tells them to believe what they want. If they sit around and do nothing, more kids are going to get hurt. That weekend, a bunch of teenagers throw a bonfire party in no man's land, an old bombing range from World War II. One of them, a boy named Kevin, meets a blonde girl nobody else seems to know.

She smiles and waves him into the trees, and Kevin follows her. A few minutes later, the woods light up with a huge explosion. The next day, the news says Kevin is suffering from shell shock from the blast. The phone rings at Noah's house, and it's Gene. He saw the look in Kevin's eyes on TV.

It's the same empty stare as Ben's. Nobody's home. He tells Noah to meet him at the docks in an hour because he wants a look at those woods himself out in no man's land. Gene reads the mud like a book. One set of footprints belongs to Kevin and the other one belongs to a girl. He tells Noah to stay behind him and step where he steps.

Then he points out that the footprints suddenly change. Kevin ran and someone else was chasing him. Piece of advice, kid. Don't get old. They reach the blast crater and there's nothing there. No blood, no body, nothing. Gene picks up a scrap of black fabric that matches what was found at the jumping bridge.

Then he digs a burned branch out of the dirt. It looks just like a broom. Noah brings his research to Eugene and Sammy. According to his books, witches feed on children to stay strong. They can change their faces and blend in with normal people. Then Noah says he's called in a closer.

Gene walks into the room and Eugene grabs a baseball bat. Noah has to tell them it's okay. He invited him. Gan doesn't believe in witches. He believes in real monsters and he's chased them his whole life. But he admits this looks like a predator who moves from town to town. Takes kids and moves on before people catch on.

Kevin followed this person willingly, so it must be someone who feels safe. Maybe an old lady. Exactly like Ellie said. Gan promises to call an old buddy at the FBI. Before he leaves, he warns the kids not to take any poisoned apples from old ladies. Do not accept poison apples from old ladies.

All right. Noah's eyes land on one old lady in particular. Through his telescope, he watches Miss Halverson ride off on her bike. Then he slips into her room. The walls are covered with drawings of children, and there's a list of names on her desk. It all started the moment she arrived.

Noah has heard her chanting in a strange language in there, and she comes and goes at all hours. So, Noah, Eugene, and Sammy grab a camcorder and follow her across the island. She heads straight for the children's theater by the harbor, where a crowd of little kids is waiting. The three of them spread out to surround her.

Right in the middle of the show, Noah charges onto the stage and throws holy water in Miss Halverson's face. He yells that she's a witch and puts her under citizen's arrest, but nothing happens. Miss Halverson is a children's author named Virginia Halverson, and she came to give a reading. The drawings are her illustrations.

The chanting was her praying in Latin. Miss Halverson packs up and leaves the bed and breakfast for good. She chose their house for some peace and privacy while she worked on her new book, and she wants back the money she paid for the rest of the summer. Abby apologizes again and again.

Then she turns to her son and tells him to get out of her sight. Noah ends up at Jean's door. Gene makes him a hot chocolate and they watch a ball game on his old TV. He's already heard the whole story on his police scanner. He tells Noah that one wrong accusation can ruin a person's name forever.

Noah says he's let his mom down, especially since his dad has been gone. Noah's dad was a journalist who traveled the world, and Noah couldn't wait for him to come home and tell him about his adventures. Then, one assignment ended with an accident, and he never came back. What Noah misses most are the little things.

Every night, his dad used to walk into his room with a golf club and clear it of monsters. Jean says he used to do the same thing for his son, only with a baseball bat. His boy would be 40 this October. When the boy was five, Jean was changing a flat tire on the side of the road.

A man on a motorcycle offered to help and rode off, then came back, grabbed the boy through the car window, and sped away. Jean chased him on three wheels, and crashed into a tree. That was the last time he saw his son. His marriage fell apart after that and he spent 30 years looking for his boy.

Then Jean shows Noah his wall. It's a map of New England covered in pins, one for every missing kid that was never found. He's hoping a pattern will show up. He decides to go to the police chief first thing in the morning, and Noah insists on coming. At the diner, Jean lays it all out for the chief.

Two kids came home with the same empty look and the same fabric was found at both scenes. He wants patrols and a curfew. Edgar Palmer is sitting right there and he won't hear of it. Then the chief asks who exactly they're looking for and Noah blurts out that it's a witch. Edgar bursts out laughing.

Jean sits back and says the kid has a vivid imagination. Noah runs into Eugene and Sammy on Main Street, but they're on their way home. Their moms think Noah is a bad influence, and Sammy almost got grounded for the rest of the summer because of him. They tell him he's not a reporter for the Boston Globe.

He's just a kid, and he needs to stop before somebody gets hurt. That was a little harsh. Okay, at the next game, Ben steps up to bat again. The pitch comes and he doesn't move. Strike three. He just stands there frozen with the bat on his shoulder until a teammate walks out and leads him back to the bench.

That evening, Eugene doesn't come home and Noah goes looking for him. He follows Eugene's trail into the woods and finds him hiding behind a tree, saying something chased him in there. Then a voice comes out of the dark and tells Noah to stop sticking his nose where it doesn't belong. The boys run for their lives.

Eugene says it's real, all of it. Then he tells Noah to stay away from him. Noah rides home alone in the dark. A pair of headlights shows up behind him and the car speeds up. Noah pedals as hard as he can. Swerves off the road and gets away. He rides straight to Jean's house and pounds on the door.

Noah is furious with him. Jean made him look like a stupid kid at the diner. Gene admits he threw him under the bus and he says he's sorry. Those men would never believe it. But Gene believes there's something out there, and from now on, it's the two of them, friends. Friends. Gene shows him what his buddy at the FBI sent.

There's a town in New Hampshire where four kids went missing, one after another. The last of them, Ronnie Harlo, was found wandering in the woods this year, and he has the same look as Ben. Gan decides to drive up to New Hampshire tomorrow and talk to his parents. Before he goes, Noah asks Gan if he'll ever reach out to his wife again.

Gene says that ship has sailed. Youth disappears one piece at a time. Noah won't listen to that. At least Jean is still here. Those missing kids would give anything for a chance to grow old. At home, Noah's mom is waiting up for him. She brings out his father's old typewriter. Abby admits that every time his dad left on an assignment, a piece of her heart went with him, and she feels the same every time Noah walks out the door.

But she wants him to have it now. From one writer to another, Noah hugs her and tells her he loves her. That night, Jean sits by his map when the TV switches on by itself. It's the home movie of his son. Then the boy on the screen asks why his daddy let the monsters take him. Why'd you let him take me, daddy?

Across the room, Jean's old typewriter starts clacking on its own. When he looks at the paper, it's a children's rhyme. Eenie, Meenie, Mini, Mo. Jean gets in his car at dawn. In New Hampshire, Ronnie's mother lets Jean into the house. Ronnie sits in front of the TV staring at an opera without really watching it.

His mom guesses there are others like him, or Jean wouldn't have come all this way. It's okay. Gene asks if he can look around. And in Ronnie's room, he finds an old tin box full of baseball cards and team pictures. On the drive back, Gan pulls out one of those pictures. It's Ronnie's little league team, and standing right there with the boys is a face Jean has seen before.

It's the umpire from Noah's games. At that same moment, Noah steps up to bat. The umpire crouches behind the plate, and Noah looks down at his arm. There's a fresh burn on it. Right where the blast in no man's land would have caught him. Noah races to the clubhouse. He tells Eugene and Sammy the witch isn't a she.

It's the umpire with the burn from the explosion and red algae on his shoes from the woods where Eugene was chased. Jean is still in New Hampshire. So it's them or nobody. Eugene caves. At the umpire's house, Noah recognizes the car in the driveway. It's the one that chased him. The kids sneak inside with the camcorder rolling.

In one room, they find a pile of children's shoes. There are pictures of kids everywhere. Then Noah finds a list, and the names on it are Ronnie, Kevin, Ben, and himself. Everything goes black. When the kids wake up, they're tied up on the floor, and the umpire is standing over them in the candle light.

He asks if they've ever been on a diet. He's been fasting for months and the cravings are terrible. He's tired of moving from town to town and living in the woods like an animal. On this island, a fresh supply of children shows up every single summer. Then he starts counting the kids off with his finger.

Eenie, meanie, Minnie, Mo. It stops on Noah. He drags Noah across the floor and his face twists into the face of an ancient witch. Go ahead, fight. She tells Noah to go ahead and fight because it tastes better that way. Sammy works her hands free and jumps on the witch from behind.

The candles go flying and the curtains catch fire. The witch screams at Sammy and calls her a disgusting little girl. Then Gene bursts through the door with his gun. He drove straight there from New Hampshire. The witch comes at him and he fires. She shrieks in pain. The silver bullets work.

Monster Summer (2024) Ending Explained

Jean yells at the kids to get out of the house which is burning down around them. Eugene and Sammy run for help, but Noah goes back for Gene. Down in the dark, he calls Jean's name, and nobody answers. Then the witch grabs him from behind. A stream of light starts pouring out of Noah's mouth.

It's his youth, and she's drinking it. Goodbye, dear boy. Gene stumbles out of the dark, raises his gun, and pulls the trigger. The witch screams, and hundreds of streams of light burst out of her body. Every stolen piece of a child's soul goes flying out over the rooftops of the island.

Then the witch explodes in a blinding flash. Noah asks if she's gone. Jean just says, "Ding-dong." Before we find out, she's got a sister. Across town, a glow fills Ben's bedroom. Ben blinks, looks around his room, and takes a deep breath. For the first time in weeks, he's really there.

Noah sits down at his father's typewriter and writes the story of his summer. But it isn't about a witch. It's about a man behind an old wooden fence that the kids on the island never bothered to know. a father, a husband, a public servant, and a true friend. Gene reads it and tells Noah he can really write.

Gene is packing up his car for a long trip. Noah tries to give back the book Gene lent him about the reporters who brought down Richard Nixon. Gene tells him to keep it. That book is how he knew writers could be heroes, too. If Noah ever bumps into a vampire or a werewolf, Gene says, give him a holler.

Then he drives away. A few days later, Ben is up to bat again, and the stands are yelling his name. He takes a strike, then digs in. On the next pitch, Ben swings. It's gone. His teammates are waiting at home plate, jumping all over him. Ben is back. Far from the island, Jean's little red car pulls up in front of a white house.

A woman is kneeling in the front yard planting flowers. She looks up and sees him. It's his wife. Noah went looking for a monster and found a friend behind that wooden fence. and Jean learned it's never too late to come home. Would you have believed Noah or would you have laughed like everybody else?