Why ‘White Water Summer’ Got Lost in the Woods
Junk Food Cinema is our monthly spotlight on trash flicks, hidden gems, and (not) guilty pleasures.
By Natalie Bauer
White Water Summer begins with a man in his mid-twenties named Vic (Kevin Bacon) hitching a ride to New York City to peddle his wilderness camping program spiel to a rich married couple. Their adolescent offspring, Alan (Sean Astin), is less than keen on the concept, favoring more solitary and cerebral pursuits.
Immediately, details appear to be moderately suspicious: who literally is this guy? What are his qualifications?? Despite everything, the pair authorize their son to depart into the forest with an unfamiliar, fully grown man based on his persuasive PowerPoint presentation of his excursion’s outlined revelry.
Thankfully for the reclusive Alan, just three additional boys are embarking on this journey along with him, but he is instantaneously shunned by the elder and extra adventuresome two. As a result, Vic provides the younger boy with additional scrutiny under the pretense of being “constructive.” However, Vic’s ploys rapidly progress into malicious excommunication and borderline misconduct.
Not Quite a Cult Classic
On the surface, White Water Summer resembles an enjoyable summertime farce in the tone or substance of John Hughes. However, as the story moves forward it exposes a more sinister and dangerous mood than its genre equivalents, sifting through subject matters like groupthink and cognitive corruption, which is what prevents it from turning into another sweeping ‘80s coming-of-age movie.
With a running time of merely 90 minutes, the action doesn’t wander or deteriorate into mush. Still, the bleaker facets of the film (taking into account its pitch-switching peak) aren’t cultivated as adequately as they could be, scarcely entering true “thriller” domain. If things were taken a stride farther, I could anticipate this being more of a legitimate cult classic.
Sadly, the movie remained sidelined for an entire year before distributors unleashed it to barely a smattering of movie theaters in the Pacific Northwest. Luckily, White Water Summer gained a DVD issue and eventually earned a little audience due to streaming services, but it remains nearly undiscovered.
Huddled between coming-of-age melodrama, vacation fun, and back-country suspense, it’s not difficult to identify why White Water Summer struggled to find its core audience. Nonetheless, with its adult motifs and narrative designs, it could function as an efficient vehicle for kids toward more advanced films. If you are a devotee of ‘80s movies and you want to show your kids something besides the typical summer movie fare, I suggest tracking this one down before the season ends.