Hell of A Summer; Sometimes Indepedent Cinema doesn‘t work

Hell of a Summer is a movie directed and written by Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk and stars relatively unknown actors, this was premiered in TIFF 2024 and it didn‘t find distribution until Neon bought the rights of the film.

The story is set in Camp Pineway, and follows a group of teenagers who are trying to survive the night of a masked killer. This film is like a tribute to all those good slasher movies and it definitely is aiming to try something new with his plot and characters, but doesn‘t justify his existence. The intention is what counts, but here seems like a good try to do something unsual and fun, but didn‘t land the mark in many ways.

Finn Wolfhard is a great potential as a director and writer and the fact, he did a film at his young age, is something to applaud for. But, this movie has some great ideas, but they didn‘t execute them well. Some scenes are unnecessary to the main plot, some characters are just there. Wolfhard and Byrk, obviously, had huge respect to the films, but the try is what counts in the end. Hell of a Summer suffers from his script through the tecnical aspects, such as good lightning, the night scenes are poorly lighted and it shows. The main masked villain is poorly executed, the kills and violence are good enough, but doesn‘t lift up the story. 

Some of the performances are good, Wolfhard and Byrk are outstanding in how to direct actors, but the film ends up like a good try in the genre, but unsufficient. The film lacked substance. But, at the end of the day, I can‘t wait to see what this duo will come up next.