Look, I love 80s slashers too, but just how many more times can we deconstruct the genre with a mixture of post-modern snark and genuine affection? Well, if you’re actors turned writer/directors Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk, then I guess the answer is at least once more as their slasher pastiche/love letter, Hell Of A Summer, takes modern teens and plonks them in a classic scenario as a ruthless killer stalks the cabins of a summer camp.
However, the old stalk and slash is once of those genres that’s been taken apart and put back together again more times than Robocop; in fact, in recent times, there’s no other genre that arguably been poked and prodded more than any other type of movie around, so was there really a call for another? There’s only one way to find out as we venture into Camp Pineway and get introduced to the smorgasbord of potential victims who are lined up to live fast, die young and leave a severely chopped corpse.
It’s a new season at Camp Pineway and 24 year-old Jason Hochberg is excitedly being driven to camp despite his mother believing he needs to drop this camp counsellor crap and start applying for law school. However, ever the idealist, Jason still sees the camp as a place of hope and joy despite everyone else finding it increasingly pathetic that he keeps coming back every year.
However, when the head counsellors end up being a no-show and with only a day to get the camp ready, Jason finds a note that puts him in charge and tries to wrangle his staff into getting everything ship-shape. However, that proves to be tougher than it sounds when the staff end up being a cluster of self-obsessed brats, and while friend Claire has a secret crush on him, such people as influencer Demi, goth Noelle, film-bro Ezra and dangerously insecure Bobby consistently make Jason’s life a misery. However, things get even more complicated when it seems that a devil-masked killer has infiltrated the camp and starts to pick off the councilors one by one in various ways.
Lacking both survival instincts and the ability to sideline their own personal shit in the face of potential death, the counselors all flounder during the high-stakes crisis and all point fingers of guilt at one another. Faring especially bad is Jason, whose nice-guy persona and advanced age (comparatively speaking) inspires suspicion among his peers and soon he finds he has to protect himself against his friends as well as a ruthless killer. But while the idiotic antics of these kids should mean that killing them off is like shooting fish in a barrel, some manage to channel their cons into rather effective pros.
But who lurks behind the devil mask? Is it some random psycho who has wandered onto the property, or is it actually one of the counselor’s rapidly dwindling number that’s doing the violent deeds?
They’ll no doubt be a few of you that think I’m being way too hard on Hell Of A Summer as all the film seems to want to do is gently riff on familiar slasher tropes. However, while I recognise that Finn Wolfhard has to do something to ensure some relevancy once Stanger Things comes to an end, and that moving into writing and directing is a smart move, the film that he and Billy Bryk have crafted is so utterly devoid of originality, you have to wonder if it was made especially for people who have never seen a horror movie before. I’m all for gateway horror, but why make one where roughly all the jokes only work if you’re already familiar with the genre? Worse yet, the approach both Wolfhard and Bryk take is one that’s already been done in ways that are far superior (and funnier) than this. If the pair watched various movies for inspiration, you wonder if viewing a double-bill of Tucker And Dale Vs Evil, or even Bodies Bodies Bodies wouldn’t have given them the push to actually do it better, or at least add I little originality.
To pay the film a compliment or two, it certainly looks good as it visually checks off an accurate look of a classic slasher and while the movie avoids the excessive gore content of something like Ti West’s X, the deaths featured still have enough oomph to register. However, while the occasional axe in the head and the odd creative murder, such a someone with a nut allergy getting stabbed with a knife smeared in peanut butter, keep things ticking over fairly well, the film is let down consistently by it’s jokes. If you’re going to tread familiar ground, you’d better have the goods when it comes to either the jokes or the likability of the characters, and it’s here where Hell Of A Summer falls flat. It’s unoriginal, and for a comedy, curiously unfunny, as it attempts to spear familiar tropes and spoof the demeanor and attitudes of gen z in a life or death situation. And yet, while most are the actors are legitimately solid, the majority of the film doesn’t really think to have them do much other than complain and/or die and at best it feels like an underwritten Saturday Night Live sketch that forgot to add any big laughs.
However, some of the cast manage to wring out some diverting stuff. Fred Hechinger (before going mad from syphilis in Gladiator II), brings a genuine sweetness to the painfully cheerful Jason as he tries to negotiate murder and teenage indifference with a smile on his face. However, I couldn’t help but be distracted by the incredibly strange fact that both Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk have chosen to not only put themselves in the film, but also given themselves roles that – on paper anyway – seemingly gives them the opportunity to get the best lines and play the most fun characters. However, this backfires hideously when the roles of both Chris and Bobby turn out to be either the wrong kind of annoying (the latter) or just utterly pointless (the former). Even more irritatingly, things start to feel suspiciously like a vanity project when, instead of giving themselves cool deaths and then dipping out early in order to take a step back to focus solely on directing, the duo simply make themselves even more important to the plot despite neither of them technically being the lead.
While it’s good that young filmmakers want to write and direct their own stuff and it’s admirable that Wolfhard and Bryk want to add more strings to their bow, it’s just a shame that they’ve managed to deliver a horror/comedy that doesn’t add a single new thing to add to an already crowed market. Furthermore, all the good intentions in the world don’t help when your horror/comedy is neither scary, funny or even particularly smart and I’m genuinely curious why the brains behind this thought it would be a good showcase of their respective skills.
Competently made, but virtually as pointless and frustrating as a blunt kitchen knife, Hell Of A Summer ends up being a enthusiastic retread of virtually every slasher movie released over the last ten years. As a horror film, it’s negligible, but as a showcase for the various talents of its two point men, it’s a painfully empty watch that suggests that Wolfhard pray for another couple of years in Hawkins…
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