A lightweight horror-fantasy aimed in theory at young teens, Monster Summer could be described as a cut-price Stranger Things -- and it certainly is strange in a number of ways.

There are some decent PG-rated thrills and scares for the preteen audience, but adults are unlikely to find it especially convincing, with clunky dialogue and a generic score letting down a solidly traditional spooky mystery.

"Monster Summer" captures a wholesome sense of wonder, and it depicts that time in life between childhood and adulthood when the world is both too big and too small at the same time.

There is some enjoyably mild freakiness here.