The film is narrated by an author, Gordie Lachance (Richard Dreyfuss), writing the memoir about his youth. Set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Oregon, over Labor Day weekend in September 1959 young Gordie (Wil Wheaton) is a quiet, bookish boy with a penchant for telling stories and writing. He is rejected by his father, following the death of his football-star older brother Denny (John Cusack) in a jeep accident. Denny paid Gordie much more attention than his parents did.
Gordie spends his time with three friends: Chris Chambers (River Phoenix) who is from a family of criminals and alcoholics and is usually stereotyped accordingly, even though he does not conform to the perceptions and stigmas attached to his family; Teddy Duchamp (Corey Feldman) who is eccentric and physically scarred after his mentally unstable father held his ear to a cooktop; and Vern Tessio (Jerry O'Connell) who is overweight and timid and often picked on.
Gordie, Chris and Teddy learn from Vern that Ray Brower's dead body has been found, apparently killed after being struck by a train. Ray Brower was a young boy whose death and subsequent police search created a big news story in Castle Rock. Vern overhears his older brother Billy (Casey Siemaszko) and his friend Charlie Hogan (Gary Riley) talking about finding the body while dumping a stolen car. So the younger boys decide to embark upon a journey to see if they can find it and become local heroes.
They set out to find the body, first encountering Milo Pressman, when they pause to fill their canteens from a well located in his junkyard. They then walk along a train bridge and Vern and Gordie are nearly run over by a passing train. At the end of the day, the boys set up camp and Gordie tells the boys a story he had been thinking of. Later on in the night, Chris reveals to Gordie his fear of being stereotyped as a criminal and never making anything of himself. As they continue they take a short-cut through a swamp only to discover that it is infested with leeches. While desperately removing them from each other, Gordie faints after finding one in his underpants, causing the other boys to wonder if they should go on. Gordie ends up being the decisive one, knowing that they have put in too much work not to see the body.
They locate the boy's dead body and it reminds Gordie that his father liked his brother better than him. At this point, local bully "Ace" Merrill (Kiefer Sutherland) and his gang ("Eyeball" Chambers (Bradley Gregg), Vince Desjardins (Jason Oliver), Charlie Hogan, Billy Tessio and two other hoods) show up in their cars to take the body, but Gordie threatens "Ace" with a handgun that Chris had brought on the trip. (This is in retaliation to an earlier confrontation when "Ace" took Gordie's New York Yankees baseball cap which was a gift from Denny.) Gordie decides that no one will get credit for finding the dead body and report it found via an anonymous phone call to the authority.
The film ends with the boys returning home to Castle Rock and saying goodbye to each other. The narrator states that Vern later married straight out of high school, had four children and became a fork-lift driver at a local lumber yard. Teddy tried to join the Army, but, because of his poor eyesight and ear injury, was refused entry. He eventually served jail time and now was doing odd jobs around Castle Rock. Chris was able to stick it out and get by in the advanced classes with Gordie and later moved out of Castle Rock and became a lawyer. However, it is revealed that Chris was recently stabbed and killed when he tried to break up a fight in a line at a fast food restaurant. Gordie then finishes his memoir and takes his son and his friend out swimming.
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Stand by Me - 1986 - Beginning Flute Song. With Ending Song.by RossVlogs1,391 views
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