Review: 'Monster Summer' is a thriller without thrills, a kid-friendly supernatural tale with nothing to surprise you

The supernatural thriller “Monster Summer” feels like one of those movies the Disney Channel (now, I suppose, Disney+) would release every October — a blockheaded kid-centered scary story, one where 12-year-olds race around on their bikes either toward or away from something menacing and creepy.

This variation on that theme stars Mel Gibson — who, despite what many people who have encountered him will tell you, is neither menacing nor creepy in this none-too-thrilling thriller.

The movie’s young hero, Noah (Mason Thames), wants to get out of the small Martha’s Vineyard summer town, circa 1997, where he lives with his mom (Nora Zehetner), who runs a bed-and-breakfast and can barely make ends meet. Noah wants to be a journalist, like his deceased father, but he can’t convince the tourism-obsessed editor of the town paper (played by comedian Kevin James) to run his exposés of unusual small-town occurrences.

One town over, a very unusual occurrence is happening: A local boy goes missing, and when he returns he’s catatonic and uncommunicative. When the same thing happens to Noah’s best friend, Ben (Noah Cottrell), Noah can’t get the paper’s editor or the police chief (Gary Weeks) to believe it’s something supernatural.

The one person Noah comes to trust is the crotchety old man with the big “no trespassing” sign outside his yard. That’s Gibson’s character, Gene, an ex-cop who, we’re told, saw his 5-year-old son taken from him decades before.

Reluctantly, Gene agrees to hear Noah out, even if his theories — namely, that the woman lodged (Lorraine Bracco) in her mom’s bed-and-breakfast is a child-snatching witch — are on the outlandish side.

The Disney Channel vibe isn’t an accident, since director David Henrie came to fame as Selena Gomez’ brother on that network’s “Wizards of Waverly Place” (as well as the son who listened to his dad’s stories on “How I Met Your Mother”). Henrie and screenwriters Bryan Schulz and Cornelius Uliano (who collaborated on “The Peanuts Movie”) have trouble finding a consistent tone, as the movie moves from bargain-basement ghouls to CGI-generated monsters without any sense of what makes a thriller — even one aimed at young audiences — truly work. It may be a “Monster Summer,” but it doesn’t hold up to the chills of Halloween season.

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‘Monster Summer’

★1/2

Opens Friday, October 4, in theaters. Rated PG-13 for some violence and terror. Running time: 97 minutes.