Hell of a Summer, 2025.
Written and Directed by Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk.
Starring Finn Wolfhard, Billy Bryk, Fred Hechinger, Abby Quinn, Krista Nazaire, Daniel Gravelle, Pardis Saremi, Julia Lalonde, Matthew Finlan, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Julia Doyle, Susan Coyne, Rosebud Baker, and Adam Pally.
SYNOPSIS:
When 24-year-old Jason Hochberg arrives for counsellor weekend at his beloved Camp Pineway, his biggest problem is feeling out of touch with his teenage co-workers. Little does he know; a masked killer has murdered camp owners John and Kathy and is preparing to strike again.
Young writers, directors, and stars Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk evidently grew up on horror movies and love the genre. Their filmmaking debut, Hell of a Summer, is essentially a playful slasher farce. However, blending comedy and horror is no easy feat, with even veteran filmmakers having tried and stumbled. This is a film that suffers from the same fate, mainly coming across as a 90-minute effort in questionable subversion and deconstruction of slashers with a masked murder mystery thrown in, alongside a dash of halfhearted commentary on the thankless nature of taking camp counseling seriously among younger peers looking to get hammered and fornicate.
Fred Hechinger’s Jason Hochberg is one of those counselors, possibly aging out of the gig but enthusiastic about returning for another year despite supposedly having said his tearful goodbyes to the profession last year. Driving him to the camp is his mom (Susan Coyne), who wishes he would get back on the path to a real job. One might assume the other, younger counselors must respect Jason if he is excitedly returning every year, but they either think he is a loser or have no recollection of his face (something that becomes more humiliating considering the two youngest counselors were also campers for several years).
Upon Jason’s arrival, he cannot find the camp owners (cameos by Adam Pally and Rosebud Baker), which he takes as a vague sign that he is being tested to inherit the leader position. Claire (Abby Quinn) is the only counselor on his side, seeing the rest of them as immature imbeciles. Meanwhile, there are brief introductions to the other counselors who are less characterised and more people who are defined by one trait.
Chris (Finn Wolfhard) and Bobby (Billy Bryk) are looking to hook up with other counselors or older campers, joking that chicks dig power. Shannon (Krista Nazaire) ends up caught between them. Mike (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, who can be seen next week in Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland’s unflinchingly visceral and immersive Warfare, with the buzz for that movie maybe being the reason Neon is finally putting this clunker out in theaters after acquiring it a year and a half ago at Toronto but not playing it at any other festivals) brags about standing up to authority and knocking out a police officer. Miley (Julia Doyle) is an airheaded vegan. Ezra (Matthew Finlan) is a dorky theatre lover apparently workshopping a gritty version of Pinocchio. Ari (Daniel Gravelle) has social anxiety and freaks out about everything, including his peanut butter allergies when others are eating it. Demi (Pardis Saremi) is a self-absorbed beauty queen hiding away from everyone. Finally, there is Noelle (Julia Lalonde), a spiritual woman who decides that playing with an Ouija board could be helpful.
After establishing these characters, typically through jokes, a dead body or two is found, making it clear that a killer is on the loose, and that it could be one of them. Since the film is leaning into portraying Jason as an oddball, the rules of cinema tell us that it would be too obvious if he were the killer. As filmmakers, Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk seem like they are trying to have fun with this concept, taking these already vapid, idiotic characters and having them jump to conclusions that it must be Jason just because he is a few years older, strange, keeps coming back, and discovered the first body.
However, this situation’s jokes and character dynamics aren’t memorable or engaging, aside from one clever bit involving the theatre stage with Ezra under duress. A few minor laughs also come from Bobby pretending to be vegan to impress Miley. As for the kills, they are a massive let down in terms of creativity and gore, with some of them being basic stabbings, in some cases, leaving the brutality offscreen. The film also forces the stupidity in those counselors too bluntly, running a joke into the ground that Jason, who is obviously not the killer, is picking them off from most to least attractive. While doing all of this, there isn’t a scary moment here.
The most frustrating blunder is the killer’s identity, with one aspect being predictable (it is such a tired idea for misdirection) and another not so much. Without getting into it, the motives here are lazily put together to the point where it’s difficult to even buy into. It’s strained, deflating what little excitement is left. Aside from the sweet chemistry between Fred Hechinger and Abby Quinn, with the latter’s Claire at one point wondering why he would even return to save a bunch of morons who thought he was the killer, this is a let down that never evolves beyond the filmmakers having an appreciation for the genre. Hell of a Summer is a bummer of a satirical slasher.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
