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Hell of a Summer directors Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk, plus star and producer Fred Hechinger, spoke to ComingSoon about their new horror movie. The trio discussed the film’s tight runtime, its unique kills, and combining horror and comedy. Distributed by Neon, it is now playing in theaters.
“Hell of a Summer follows 24-year-old camp counselor Jason Hochberg (Hechinger), 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,” says the synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Finn, this film is a tight 90… actually, 88 minutes. But that’s my ideal movie length because a well-constructed 90 minutes can just leave you with characters you love for a lifetime. How was the editing process and really landing on this cut that we see?
Finn Wolfhard: Oh yeah. Well, yeah. Thanks, I agree with you. I think 90 minute movies are the best. You know, there’s obviously amazing movies that are longer. But there’s something just about that’s so tight about… yeah, 88, I think ours is 88 minutes.
Billy Bryk: Something like that with credits. Yeah, I think so.
Wolfhard: 88 with credits. So yeah, I mean, that was always the design was to make it flow really and for the movie to feel sort of fast. And the cut went through a bunch of different iterations.
Bryk: Well, we just didn’t have anything left over.
Wolfhard: Yeah. We shot it all.
Bryk: The script had to be so lean because we had so few days. So the script to the screen, it’s very similar, but what was really worked on in the cut was just tonally figuring out sort of when to push certain beats and when to hold things back, when to make it scary or when to make it funnier. But I don’t believe there’s any cut scenes and I don’t think that there’s anything —
Wolfhard: Maybe one.
Bryk: Oh, yeah, there’s one scene that was shortened.
Billy, I read that Shaun of the Dead was an influence. How was it balancing horror and comedy and making sure they really complimented each other rather than one overtaking the other?
Bryk: Yeah, I mean, Shaun of the Dead was a huge influence for us because not only is it a horror comedy, but it’s also a really character driven story. And it’s a story that’s about this guy who was trying to win his girlfriend back and get his life together.
And then the backdrop of that film was this incredible zombie movie and this incredibly funny zombie movie. And we kind of wanted to do that. We wanted to write a movie about somebody who is forced to sort of grow up and move on to the next stage of their life and leave this childhood love behind, and then also make it a slasher comedy.
The other thing that I’ll say is we never wanted it to feel like now it’s a comedy, now it’s a horror film. We always wanted them to compliment each other. And I think that the funniest scenes in the movie come directly after the scariest scenes in the movie because the stakes of the horror just elevate everything that’s weird about these characters and really… When the tensions get really high, everyone’s sort of true nature is revealed. And I think it leads to the funniest moments in the movie.
Fred, you’ve been on a really phenomenal run lately, and you’re having a lot of fun here. You’re also a producer on this film. I wanted to ask about having that extra creative feedback and input on shaping this film. Are you looking to continue producing going forward? How was that experience?
Fred Hechinger: I really loved it, and this was like the most beautiful way to start that. It felt like a really natural, organic way of working. And I like what Billy was saying about horror and comedy complimenting. It felt like [they] only compliment each other in the right circumstance.
With a film like this, we knew everyone so well, and we took over summer camp and we built a community that way. And so, when you’re working in such a focused and contained way, I feel like you can really start to see what people need to feel most comfortable and to do the best job that they can do. And so those, those things just helped each other.
Finn, I wanted to ask about the kills because the whole family can enjoy Stranger Things or Ghostbusters, but you’re showing a bit of a sicko side here. I love it. How is it coming up with those?
Wolfhard: I mean maybe not for Stranger Things anymore just from that last season ’cause there’s a lot of gnarly stuff in that. But no, yeah, I know what you’re saying.
I think I’ve always had a passion for special effects makeup. Ever since I was really little. I, for whatever reason, just really interested me, and I just loved horror effects. Even on top of that, the Quentin Tarantino gore stuff, like, I just liked that stuff growing up and that was such a fun part of writing the script is trying to figure out what are good kills. Also the challenge is like, “What kills haven’t been done before?” Obviously, you know, an ax to the head, like the axes have definitely been used in in horror movies…
Hechinger: But that feels more about the lead up.
Wolfhard: Exactly. It’s more about the joke and sort of the lead up of that.
Just sort of trying to lean more also into like the location and the camp and trying to use things that are so super quintessentially summer camp. And involving that in the kills I think was really important as well for us.
So yeah, it’s always been something that I’ve liked and have been interested in. And the first draft had some crazy kills that weren’t even… like, they were just pretty crazy. Like that they weren’t even creative. They just were like, “And then two cinder blocks,” you know, whatever, just super gnarly, whatever. We had to get more creative as we kept writing.
Thanks to Hell of a Summer’s Finn Wolfhard, Billy Bryk, and Fred Hechinger for taking the time to talk about the new horror movie.
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