Hell of a Summer occupies a space on the Venn diagram of young actors making a movie on their own (Super 8, Me; Earl, and the Dying Girl; The Vast of Night) and horror comedy that I think has the potential for broad appeal (the slasher summer camp genre, historically Joss Whedon’s Cabin in the Woods, Final Girls, or Tucker and Dale vs Evil, but more contemporarily: The Monkey, Longlegs, Companion, Cuckoo, M3GAN, and Trap). The brand of humor that typifies this movie is split evenly between the mean humor directed toward one of the nicest, most earnest characters imaginable, played by the king of lovable oafs Fred Hechinger; the observational, absurdist humor that hums in the background of every scene; and the deadest of deadpan.
Written, directed, and featuring Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk, Hell of a Summer is an outstanding first salvo for the pair, who have collaborated on earlier films. The film is filled with misdirects and send-ups to its slasher horror predecessors, but it also has a killer twist on the genre in its final act. Hell of a Summer is fluent in what it means to be in the awkward place with feet planted between childhood and adulthood in your twenties, while not being earnest. It is incisive about its social commentary without being reductive. It is effortless in its self-critiques of the young man’s masculinity or lack thereof while also finding ways to flirt with the cool. The script is tight. The jokes are packed. A sub-90 minutes runtime shows discipline. This is one of my favorite films in years, though I’m tempted to go for a second re-watch to see how it holds up.
