Actors Billy Byrk and Finn Wolfhard spent part of their childhoods engaging in a time-honored ritual that dates back to the rise of home video in the early 80's: watching hardcore horror movies that they shouldn't have been watching at an early age. Unlike the overwhelming majority of people who gleefully corrupted themselves with the sights of masked killers, dead bodies and oozing viscera during their adolescence, they parlayed the love for the genre that blossomed during their formative years into making their very own R-rated slasher comedy with Hell of a Summer. While not with some debut feature bugs, the young Canadian duo-who were just 22 and 19 respectively at the time of production in July/August 2022-do a pretty good job of putting their own spin on a classic "masked killer terrorizes a summer camp" setup.
Categorizing Hell of a Summer as a slasher movie is actually a smidge disingenuous. Yes, there is a knife-wielding masked killer going around killing camp counselors on the weekend before the campers are set to arrive, but it's really more of a straight comedy that just happens to have a slasher element to it. From the main protagonist being a constantly chipper 24-year-old counselor (Fred Hechinger) who loves Camp Pinewood so much that he continues to delay going to law school to come back to a place that has brought him so much joy over the years despite the increasingly large age gap between him and the majority of the other counselors to many of the kills being tailored towards each individual who has the misfortune of being murdered at a summer camp, the film's small universe entirely revolves around finding the comedy in this scenario that we've seen play out on screen dozens of times before. This approach ends up working out pretty well as it infuses the film with a unique personality that effectively mines situational, character-driven humor from its story instead of falling back on the exhausting, increasingly lazy meta well like many other joke-driven slashers have since Scream. Taking the time to establish enough personality in each character-even if it's only a trait or two-to use as ammo for bits later in the movie is a surprisingly thoughtful piece of writing from Byrk and Wolfhard and unquestionably one of the biggest reasons that most of the jokes here land with their intended impact.
When it comes to the moments where it IS a proper slasher movie, Hell of a Summer runs into a bit of a trouble. Astoundingly dim nighttime cinematography and strategic cutaways obscure many of the kills that appear on-screen and the eventual unmasking of the killer along with the reveal of their motivations is the only time the film becomes dispiritingly derivative. It's a bit baffling that the only part of Hell of a Summer that Byrk and Wolfhard really whiffed on is the actual killer part of the equation, especially given their evident affinity for the genre. I'd imagine that creating a killer and the murders they commit is the most fun part of assembling a slasher movie and yet these guys managed to put considerably less care into that area than the rest of the film. They're currently developing a reboot of the singularly wild B-horror comedy Idle Hands at Sony right now, so they could conceivably redeem themselves in a big way in this area if the film actually gets made.
For all its flaws in the slashing department, Hell of a Summer still manages to get the job done. Wolfhard and Byrk have an assurance and specificity of vision that should suit them well as they progress on their filmmaking journeys and the film is plenty funny and spirited enough to sustain its breezy 88-minute runtime. Go check it out if you're seeking lighthearted fun at the theater without the threat of being hit with popcorn, Sour Patch Kids and Sprite by rowdy teenagers at a showing of A Minecraft Movie.
Grade: B
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