This movie gets off to a great start with the classic 80s Steven King setup of a group of adolescent losers coming of age through dark situations. This especially hit home for me as things are set in the 90s, and the kids are the age I was at the time (You know you're getting old when your actual age starts showing up in "period pieces"). I thought they did a great job capturing the quirks of growing up at the time without resorting to gratuitous pop culture references.

Then comes the twist that is to be the meat of the movie: an accidental murder! This has been explored countless times before, so no points for originality, but it's still an intriguing premise to watch play out. The film focuses on the guilt eating our characters, and their performances are suitably intense.

Where I take issue is that the movie climaxes with one of the characters going full psycho killer which really just doesn't fit the tone of the rest of the film. I'll buy that trauma and grief can lead to some crazy things, but going on a murderous rampage just feels a little extreme. The movie spent so much time humanizing the characters and making their emotions feel realistic that this twist just comes across as lazy sensationalism.

I'm sorry, but if you want to tell a story that works, you can't pull a complete 180 in the beginning of the 3rd act and turn a character into a psychopath FOR NO LOGICAL REASON. How is this moving the plot forward? You're just canceling the whole 1 hr and 10 min of the movie!!! What a horrible waste of two very well done first acts. Did the screenwriter think he was being edgy? All it does is make you say "WTF?! Why?!" Maybe this insane turn of events makes sense to psychopaths... I dunno. It made me so angry. Thee ol' bait and switch. It's basically two different movies and neither one has a resolution. Sloppy. Stupid. Pretentious. You're not being deep guy... you're just destroying the plot of your movie. A potentially very good movie too. Sad. Way to ruin your movie.

Every childhood has its own stories. And we get one here that incorporates a couple of things. It may seem to go one way and then swerves and goes somewhere else with it. So I'd say it is not as predictable as other movies in the same genre. It also tells you from the start that this isn't just a light fun affair.

So if you like a drama with really good child performers, this is one of the movies I'd recommend you to watch. Mistakes will be made and the consequences do grow out and mess up with other people. But it's also yourself who may have trouble getting over certain things happening. Add to that a romantic "side-story" and you have a really powerful movie (flawed as it still may be)