{"id":11648,"date":"2025-04-06T19:17:31","date_gmt":"2025-04-06T23:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=11648"},"modified":"2025-04-23T00:55:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T04:55:33","slug":"hell-of-a-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/04\/06\/hell-of-a-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"Hell of a Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Hell of a Summer<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Neon\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 88 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (horror violence, language throughout, some sexual references)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Jay McCarrol\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Kristofer Bonnell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: April 4, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Fred Hechinger, Abby Quinn, Billy Bryk, Finn Wolfhard, Pardis Saremi, D\u2019Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Matthew Finlan, Julia Doyle, Krista Nazaire, Julia Lalonde, Daniel Gravelle, Susan Coyne, Rosebud Baker, Adam Pally.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: **<\/p>\n

\u00a0With Hell of a Summer<\/strong>, I am once again reminded how old I am. As loathe as I am to repeat the words of my parents and grandparents, I have no choice. I don\u2019t understand today\u2019s teenagers. I really don\u2019t. Not even if they\u2019re a bunch of twenty-somethings pretending to be teens. I don\u2019t relate to them. I don\u2019t understand their mentality. Half the time, I don\u2019t even understand what they\u2019re saying. OMG, I think I finally get where my parents were coming from.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although I suspect it\u2019s the point, I couldn\u2019t stand any of the characters in the new slasher comedy Hell of a Summer<\/strong>, the directorial debut of Ghostbusters: Afterlife co-stars Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk. They also wrote the screenplay for this homage to the summer camp slashers of the 80s- e.g. Friday the 13th<\/sup> (1980), The Burning (1981), Madman (1982) and Sleepaway Camp (1983). I enjoyed all of these more than Hell of a Summer<\/strong> which is kind of a bummer. I really wanted to like it, but the annoying characters made it difficult. I found myself rooting for the killer to get them all.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The storyline is fairly standard. A deranged killer works his (or her) way through a group of camp counselors. They\u2019re there for a weekend of training and partying before the kids show up. The de facto leader is socially inept Jason (Hechinger, Kraven the Hunter), a wimpy sort who\u2019s been attending Camp Pineway for the past 15 summers (I think). He assumes leadership in the absence of camp owners John (Pally, Sonic the Hedgehog 1-3) and Kathy (SNL writer Baker) who get offed in the opening scenes. Hers is one of the two good kill scenes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The counselors, a bunch of vapid types that include social media influencer Demi (Saremi, Death and Other Details), vegan Miley (Doyle, Astrid and Lilly Save the World), goth psychic Noelle (Lalonde, The Lake) and pompous gay theater director Ezra (Finlan, Orphan: First Kill), don\u2019t like or respect Jason. They think he\u2019s a loser and put him down at every opportunity. Of course, he\u2019s the prime suspect when the killing starts.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The other potential victims are self-obsessed storyteller Mike (Woon-A-Tai, Reservation Dogs), aspiring filmmaker Ari (Gravelle, We Forgot to Break Up), black mean girl Shannon (Nazaire, The Hardy Boys) and moronic horndogs Chris and Bobby (Wolfhard and Bryk). The other person in Hell of a Summer<\/strong> that isn\u2019t completely insufferable is Claire (Quinn, Knock at the Cabin), an inscrutable type who Jason has a crush on even though she\u2019s not particularly nice to him. In her defense, she\u2019s not as completely awful as her peers.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Maybe it\u2019s a generational thing, but the teen victims-to-be in the Friday the 13th<\/sup> movies weren\u2019t as horrible as the kids in Hell of a Summer<\/strong>. They were just a bunch of horny teens looking to smoke weed and screw before meeting the business end of whatever implement Jason happened to be wielding at the moment. However, it was pointed out to me that Hell of a Summer<\/strong> is more of a comedic take on the genre and the character types are deliberately exaggerated. Okay, I can accept that, but it doesn\u2019t mean I found it funny. Some of it is mildly amusing at best, but most of it just fell flat with me. I guess I wanted something more along the lines of Wet Hot American Summer which retains the 80s setting with all the trappings. Then again, Hell of a Summer<\/strong> isn\u2019t exactly aimed at mature audiences. This one is for millennials and Gen-Z.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Hell of a Summer<\/strong> is disappointingly light on gore. There are only a couple of good kill scenes. The one I alluded to earlier has Kathy getting a knife in the back of the head through a car headrest. In the other, the victim buys it via an axe to the skull. That\u2019s it. Wolfhard and Bryk are really stingy with the red stuff. As a confirmed gorehound, I wanted more, much more. Then again, the makers aren\u2019t going for a Terrifier blood feast here. Okay, fine.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The performances in Hell of a Summer<\/strong> are fine. All of the actors convincingly play character types that have become all too common in teen-oriented movies. Take Demi, the conceited influencer more interested in creating content than camping. You have to wonder what she\u2019s even doing here at Pineway. She doesn\u2019t strike me as the type who engages in any form of outdoor activity. Ari is an intolerable a**hole who treats his mild peanut allergy like a terminal disease. The way he goes off on somebody for daring to eat a nut-free granola bar in close proximity to him makes you support the killer all the more. The whole cast nails their unlikable characters perfectly.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There is no suspense in Hell of a Summer<\/strong>. It\u2019s fairly predictable. You might not guess the killer right away, but it comes as no surprise when it\u2019s revealed. In the end, the movie is no big deal. To be fair, I\u2019ve seen much worse. I just wanted Hell of a Summer<\/strong> to be better than okay.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hell of a Summer (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Neon\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 88 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (horror violence, language throughout, some sexual references)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Jay McCarrol\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Kristofer Bonnell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: April 4, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Fred Hechinger, Abby Quinn, Billy Bryk, Finn Wolfhard, Pardis Saremi, D\u2019Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11656,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Hell-of-a-Summer-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11648"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11658,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11648\/revisions\/11658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}