…on the loose in town.

Its an 80s or 90s movie I saw late at night on cable in a hotel room while my parents were sleeping.

New kid in beach town. Kid goes into bookstore.

Finds self published red cover book.

killer is on the loose in town. Later revealed killer maybe wrote the book and just left it in the bookstore. Kid has close encounter with said killer while obsessing over little red book.

Kid doesnt get killed, meets local girl, gets some action, later at a party during multiple morbid revelations about the other events, kid sees same girl in room with dude and hes distraught but shes like ‘pffffft’. He hangs his head and goes home probably to run from the killer again, dont remember, dark movie, sad.

The way the movie builds hope and then crushes it was epic, at least in my 9 year old mind. Pondering it later made me come up with the phrase/idea: ‘Summer movies always have to end.’

Would like to look up the movie again, but dont know the name.

Similar dystopia atmosphere to Lost Angels if you ever seen that one.