Horror films set at summer camps were a guaranteed formula for decades in the past. Isolated summer camp in the middle of a dark forest, seemingly ancient cabins that hide a dark secret and a ruthless killer that hates hot teens having premarital sex are all cliches in these films.
While classics like “Friday the 13th” and “Sleepaway Camp” are horror icons, the genre lacks new renditions that resonate with a younger audience. “Hell of a Summer” is the perfect fresh blood in the lineage of slasher, summer camp horror films, mixing just the right amount of scares and laughs to make for an energetic joyride. “Stranger Things” star Finn Wolfhard and filmmaker Billy Bryk’s co-directorial debut “Hell of a Summer” is a genre-bending Gen Z twist on a classic horror setting.
“If you try to get a certain slang or a trend of the time, you instantly date yourself,” Wolfhard said in an interview with WSN. “Our idea was to make the film as timeless as we could.”
The film follows Jason (Fred Hechinger), a man a little too old to be working at a summer camp, as he arrives at Camp Pineway to be a counselor. He’s joined by a group of unenthusiastic fellow counselors, which includes nepo baby Chris (Wolfhard) and an attention-seeking Bobby (Bryk). When a mysterious masked killer begins to brutally murder the camp counselors one by one, Jason must find a way to save this team of Gen Z tropes in his self-proclaimed position of “camp leader.”
One of the clear strengths of “Hell of a Summer” lies in its depiction of characters. From a hypocritical vegan to a theater kid blurting out soliloquies, the personalities this film portrays are tailored for a modern audience. The unlikely synergy between a classical setting with fresh characters successfully creates a unique charm for this film.
“We wanted to put these young, contemporary characters in a setting that felt stuck in time,” Bryk said. “We were tired of scripts that felt like they were trying so hard to appeal to a younger audience.”
“Hell of a Summer” is not just a horror film. The filmmaker-actor duo show off their comedic chops as they blend creative gory kills with quippy humor, defying audience expectations and genre tropes.
“We didn’t want to make a movie that was a horror movie and then a comedy movie,” Bryk said. “We wanted to have both genres happening at the same time.”
While the film’s comedic aspects seep into its horror side and interfere with its suspense, “Hell of a Summer” still accomplishes hitting both the scares and the laughs — ensuring a fun experience for the audience.
The film also smoothly touches upon the coming-of-age genre with its main character Jason — aptly named after the horror icon from the same subgenre — and his journey growing out of being a naive man-child completely out of touch with his campmates.
“Finn and I bonded over the love of coming-of-age teen ensemble movies like ‘Superbad,’ ‘Dazed and Confused’ and ‘The Graduate,’” Bryk said. “We wanted to make our own version of these movies.”
Wolfhard and Bryk star in “Hell of a Summer” as characters that provide comedic relief between high-intensity horror sequences. Their chemistry as friends in real life shines through in this film, making each quip and quirk relatable and interesting.
“It was a great experience collaborating with each other on this,” Wolfhard said. “We’ll be able to look back on this movie in 10 years as an artifact of what our relationship was.”
“Hell of a Summer” succeeds in bringing back the nightmarish memories of “Friday the 13th” with the whimsical tone of “Shaun of the Dead.” Wolfhard and Bryk’s debut film is an exciting, genre-mixing horror comedy made for Gen Z audiences.
Contact Tony Jaeyeong Jeong at [email protected].