Newington native Cornelius Uliano is best known as a writer/producer for the new series of animated “Peanuts” specials on Apple+. For his latest project, he is still working with children, but real live ones, in “Monster Summer,” a new family-friendly horror film being released Oct. 4.
The cast is dominated by young actors, led by “The Black Phone” star Mason Thames and including Abby James Witherspoon (“Secret Headquarters”), Gavin Bedell (“The Ms. Pat Show”), Nico Tirozzi (“Outer Banks”), Noah Cottrell (“The Spiderwick Chronicles”), Julian Lerner (“The Wonder Years”) and another “The Black Phone” cast member, Spencer Fitzgerald. Also in “Monster Summer” is a grown-up actor who’s easily recognizable from a film he made as a child — Patrick Renna, who played “Ham” Porter in “The Sandlot.”
Some of the adults in the film are played by big names, including Mel Gibson, Lorraine Bracco, Kevin James and Bobbi Baker from “House of Payne.” Acclaimed voiceover artist Barbara Goodson is also in the mix.
“Monster Summer” is directed by David Henrie, who is an actor known for the series “The Wizards of Waverly Place,” “How I Met Your Mother” and “She’s So Raven.”
Courtesy of Cornelius Uliano
Mason Thames in the new scary but family-friendly movie “Monster Summer,” co-written and co-produced by Newington-born Cornelius Uliano. (Courtesy of Cornelius Uliano)
“Monster Summer” is an indie film that is getting a wide release in theaters in October to attract the Halloween family moviegoing crowd. The AMC Plainville 20 is one of the cinemas scheduled to show the movie Oct. 3-9 and perhaps longer.
The movie is set in 1997 on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, though the filming was done in Southport, North Carolina.
The movie’s plot sounds simple — “kids go off to defeat this monster” is how Uliano summed it up — but it’s a much fuller film than that. The film is set in 1997, and Uliano said he based the story on his feelings as a child in seventh or eighth grade in that era. When he was young, he liked to talk to World War II veterans about their lives, he said. In the film, he has one of the young characters bond with a retired police detective.
Later in life, Uliano went to Martha’s Vineyard for a honeymoon trip when he got married and saw the island area as an ideal location for a coming-of-age film that also happens to have watery menace in it.
Uliano said Gibson, who plays the detective, described “Monster Summer” as “‘The Goonies’ with teeth.”
Courtesy of Cornelius Uliano
From left: “Monster Summer” co-writer/co-executive producer Cornelius Uliano with actor Patrick Renna (of “The Sandlot” fame) and producer Dan McDonough. (Courtesy of Cornelius Uliano)
The characters unite to save their island from a mysterious and destructive force, Uliano explained. While there isn’t one character based explicitly on him, “there’s a piece of me in each of the characters. Like, one of the kids quotes movies a lot. I did that. Another one wants to be a journalist like I did.”
“Some moments are scary but it’s meant for families,” Uliano said. “They can laugh, scream and eat popcorn together. It’s an entertaining, worry-free experience. It captures that summer when you first grew up and were made aware of the world around you. There’s a lot of heart in the movie.”
Uliano feels that “Monster Summer” could be just the beginning for these characters and situations, whether it’s a sequel to the movie or adaptations into other media.
Uliano, who grew up in Newington and now lives in Los Angeles, California, returns home to see family regularly. “Connecticut really means a lot to me,” he said. “I go back to Newington and speak at schools. I love where I’m from.”
He is not able to be in Connecticut while “Monster Summer” is being released but hopes to hold special screenings in the state in the future. He’ll be on the East Coast in November when he’ll have the prestigious job of being a balloon handler for the gigantic inflatable Snoopy in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Uliano is still involved with “Peanuts” specials. The newest one, “Welcome Home, Franklin” premiered in February on Apple+. Another is due next year, and the sequel to 2015’s feature-length “The Peanuts Movie” is in production.
Yet “there’s always time for monsters,” Uliano said. “When we were working on ‘The Peanuts Movie,’ we were also working on this movie.”
