Hell of a Summer

Hell of a Summer is a playful entry into the "camp slasher" genre, written and directed by Billy Bryk and Finn Wolfhard. Rather than leaning into the darker, grittier aspects of traditional slashers, this film feels more like a tongue-in-cheek homage-a lighthearted parody that embraces the tropes with full self-awareness. While some moments initially felt like weaknesses, they ultimately came across as intentional nods to genre clichés. It's not a horror film that takes itself too seriously, and that's part of its charm. Despite some of the criticism it's received, I had fun with it-and sometimes, that's all you need. Video review available on my YouTube channel.

It now makes more sense to me why it took until 2025 to release this 2023 movie. It's just not good. Below average in every category. End of review.

Fine, I'll say more. I normally enjoy the horror-comedy tone they were going for, but the comedic attempts at their best only made me smirk. The cast is extremely weak. The dialogue and story is as basic as it gets.

There is a decent opening scene with a cool kill. But then the kills are offscreen. Why? This is a slasher. I ended up quitting the movie after 45 minutes (about halfway through). But apparently most of the kills are offscreen. Just a baffling decision.

(1 viewing, 4/22/2025)

The plot of the film is messy and uninspired. Most of the humor in the movie fell flat to me and it doesn't balance comedy and horror much at all. The story could've been told in thirty minutes if you cut out all the random running scenes where they go pretty much nowhere. The villain's costume was cool and some of the kills delivered but most of it was a canoe to nowhere. I still have to give credit to Finn for directing a theatrical release film at 22 years old but I just hope to see him evolve as a filmmaker and try on some different hats when it comes to storytelling. Honestly wait for this on streaming if you really want to see it.

Is it horror? No, not even remotely scary. Slasher? Nope, deaths are mild and most of the time off screen. Maybe it's funny? Fail. Dialogue and jokes were cheesy and amateurish. Even the characters were unlikeable. No personality, character development or growth. It was just bad all over. I was hoping for, at least, a funny slasher... but again... deaths were off screen and lacked creativity. And while the music was good, it made no sense. It had an 80s retro sound, but the movie took place in modern times since they all turn in cell phones. Nothing about this movie was good, it made 0 sense and had a cliche plot twist that's been done 100 times.

I saw the trailer for this film some months ago and it looked pretty good. As the horror fanatic I am, when I noticed that this film was out, I went ahead and watched it... It was not good at all.

The plot is the most generic thing that you can think off, a slasher in a camping in the middle of the woods. It also decided to throw away some Scream elements in there, which wasn't ideal, only making the film more predictable. The deaths are extremely bad and lack any sort of creativity. Also, for some reason, every one of them except two or three including the opening sequence are off screen. I mean, if you are going to make a bad slasher film, at least try to have some good kills, if not, it loses a lot.

The humor is flat, and the ending is predictable too. There's just nothing going for this, don't watch it.