Neon have acquired the North American rights for Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk’s horror comedy and debut feature film, Hell of a Summer. TheWrap is reporting the acquisition but did not mention what Neon's plans are for it yet.
“Hell of a Summer” follows 24-year-old camp counselor Jason Hochberg, who arrives at Camp Pineway thinking his biggest problem is that he feels out of touch with his teenage co-workers. What he doesn’t know is that a masked killer is lurking on the campgrounds, brutally picking counselors off one by one.
Hell of a Summer had its world premiere at TIFF last September. Our own Shelagh caught the horror comedy then and appreciated the effort from writers and directors. They just wished that the duo had put their own stamp on the genre rather than just dishing out a flich that will feel too familiar to horror fans.
Long a favoured location for slasher films, summer camp provides plenty of proverbial fodder for a serial killer's cannon: plenty of nubile, horny, often unaware bodies in an isolated place, waiting to be, well, slashed by whatever preferred method. It provides a familiar trope onto which a filmmaker can make that individual mark to have their film stand out.Sadly, that mark is missing from Hell of a Summer. Granted, this is the debut film from writers/director Billy Bryk (When You Finish Saving the World) and Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things). And they have plenty of inspiration at their fingertips in the horror and comedy tones they're aiming for, from Friday the 13th to Superbad. But while they are some funny moments and a few good, gruesome kills, it's mostly uninventive.
Ouch. Hey, they're young and just starting to make their way in the world of writing and directing. Plenty of time to find their own groove and make their own distinct place in horror filmmaking. Neon's not worried about that, they're banking on the young duo's standing with the youth out there. Specifically the Stranger Things fanbase.