80s Inspired ‘Hell Of A Summer' Slays Its Way Into The Slasher Revival

Forbes

05-04-2025

(Left to right) Finn Wolfhard, Fred Hechinger and Billy Bryk attend Neon's 'Hell Of A Summer' New ... More York Premiere on April 01, 2025.
Movies such as the Scream reboot, Freaky, Heart Eyes, and now Hell of a Summer aren't just genre revivals; they're a clear message to Hollywood from a key demographic.
"The mistake is chasing something that feels too contemporary. A movie takes so long to make and get out to an audience that if you are trying to have the most up-to-date slang and references and speak to the kids, you've missed the window by the time the movies come out. It's going to feel dated," explains Billy Bryk, who co-wrote and co-directed the coming-of-age horror comedy with Stranger Things' Finn Wolfhard.
"There are so many people making comedy sketches on TikTok and Instagram that you can consume comedy immediately, which speaks to what's happening right now in a way that, like movies can't. People must focus on letting movies be movies and not make movies feel like content or memes. Make more movies that may feel less zeitgeisty and more timeless."
The pair of cinephiles, who also star in the Hell of a Summer, which will exclusively be in theaters on Friday, April 3, 2025, were on a clear mission right out of the gate.
"We wanted to reintroduce the blend of genres and recontextualize it for a contemporary audience," Wolfhard explains. "We're in a weird place not only in the world but also in the film industry. It has felt like a transitional period for a few years, and a lot of that also has to do with many big film companies who make amazing movies but have so much money they don't know what to do with it. What used to happen in the 70s, 80s, and 90s was that a studio wouldn't make two $100 million movies; they would make twenty $10 million movies, and you would have these smaller films that could really breathe and had their own sort of time."
Inspired by a blend of coming-of-age, horror, and comedy films, Hell of a Summer follows 24-year-old camp counselor Jason Hochberg, played by Thelma and The White Lotus' Fred Hechinger. He arrives at Camp Pineway thinking his biggest problem is feeling out of touch with his teenage co-workers. However, what he doesn't know is that a masked killer is lurking in the campgrounds, picking counselors off one by one.
That was a eureka moment for 25-year-old Hechinger. Hot property in Hollywood right now, the actor, who is also one of the film's producers, starred in five films in 2024 alone including Gladiator II.
"Something that was very personal in making this was the feeling of being slightly old for the first time, which isn't to say you're old in the outside world, but it's the first time in your life that you are too old for something" he muses. "If you think of life as just like continually coming of age to different experiences, this felt like one of those formative coming of age moments where the place you love the best you have to move on from. You have to leave and take that risk and enter the next chapter of your life, however unclear and scary that might seem."
All three of them are in their early to mid-20s bonded immediately after their first meeting.
"We sat down with Fred, and what was supposed to be a 40-minute tea turned into a four-and-a-half hour discussion about filmmaking and our lives and influences, and immediately afterward we were like, 'We have to push to get Fred'" Ghostbusters: Afterlife's Byrk recalls. "He was coming off The White Lotus. Everybody wanted to work with him, and we got him for the month we needed him. We moved our schedule around a little bit to make it happen."
Hechinger adds, 'What was so amazing was we realized that we shared hundreds of references, and they ran the gamut. At first, we were talking about horror movies from the 70s and 80s; then we were talking about coming-of-age comedies, and then YouTube videos like Jake and Amir that we realized meant a lot to all of us. It was something that we watched religiously growing up and shaped our sense of humor, our sense of rhythm, and editing. It was really inspiring to take these vastly different references and put them all together. We were really interested in and inspired by that mix of timelessness and the contemporary.'
"Finn and Billy are so sharp and smart. I love how they played to their strengths. If you're making your first film, rather than trying to put in a million locations and getting bogged down in all that transport, travel, and losing all your budget on those factors, I felt that because of their experience acting in movies, they knew that they could focus on the priorities they cared about. They asked, 'What is a location where we can really get into these character dynamics in the most focused and intelligent way possible?' The answer was a summer camp, so the fact that it all took place in one place makes it easier. In a practical sense, if it was raining and we planned to shoot a scene out on the campground, we could quickly jump inside one of the cabins and film a different scene."
(Left to Right)Abby Quinn, Finn Wolfhard, Krista Nazaire, and Fred Hechinger in 'Hell of a Summer.'
The trio's influences for Hell of a Summer include filmmakers such as The Thing director John Carpenter, who recently received a long-overdue star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Superbad's Greg Mottola, and Wes Anderson. They and the film's distributor, Neon, have even tried to work the latter into the grassroots marketing campaign.
"It was really important to us to build a more homegrown press tour. We wanted to make sure to hit schools and talk to young filmmakers and young people. It's important to me to pull back the curtain as much as you can," Hechinger says. "Billy, Finn, and I all love the movie Rushmore, and it made us so happy that we got to take a bus across the country with the name of the movie on it, which is a tip of the cap to the Rushmore bus."
"It has been really fun that we've been able to go to schools and talk about how we made the movie, meet film students and young people that are already making movies or are thinking about making movies and continue to want to make more. I'm thrilled that we're getting to do it in this old-school way."
Audiences first got a taste of Hell of a Summer when it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 2023. Even though the film's release feels perfectly timed, with Hechinger red hot and the final Stranger Things season coming soon, was Wolfhard worried it might not hit theaters?
"Yeah. That is not a stretch to think at all," the actor confirms. "There was a long period of time of waiting and hearing back from various places, getting feedback, then waiting some more, and then the strikes and all this weird stuff happening. I feel like it's the right time for this movie to come out, so the wait was worth it, but it was stressful."
"You don't know with these things. It felt like writing the scripts was going to be a big challenge, but we did it. Getting it financed would be a big challenge, but we did that, and then we thought making would be a big challenge. After all that, the film still has to come out. We're so grateful, and Neon has been incredible. They're such an incredible company, and we're such fans. It's a dream place for this film to land. The fact that they're committing to a wide theatrical release for Hell of a Summer is massive for us because we grew up watching these types of movies in theaters. We believe it so important for audiences to see them there."