Summary

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff talks with Hell of a Summer’s Finn Wolfhard, Billy Bryk, and Fred Hechinger.

Co-writers and directors Wolfhard and Bryk share their thoughts on what makes a teen movie timeless and which tropes to avoid.

The trio also discuss the film’s costume design, Hechinger shares how he tapped into his character, and they reveal which classic horror movie scenes they would love to be a part of.

Just in time for the turn of the season, Hell of Summer is making its way into theaters, and Collider’s Perri Nemiroff had a chance to chat with the co-writers and directors, Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk, about their love letter to classic horror slashers.
In the movie, 24-year-old Jason (Fred Hechinger) is returning to Camp Pineway, where he’s tasked with corralling a group of young counselors — Bobby (Bryk), Chris (Wolfhard), Demi (Pardis Saremi), Claire (Abby Quinn), Mike (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), Ezra (Matthew Finlan), Ari (Daniel Gravelle), Miley (Julia Doyle), Noelle (Julia Lalonde), and Shannon (Krista Nazaire) — as they prepare for the onslaught of kiddos. Unfortunately, this summertime getaway turns into a deadly nightmare when, one by one, they’re picked off by a masked killer. But, as they say, “A bad day at Pineway is better than a good day anywhere else!”
In this interview, Wolfhard, Bryk, and Hechinger discuss what makes a teen movie timeless, and why they believe some movies miss the mark when it comes to depicting a younger crowd in a way that feels believable. They also share which iconic horror movie scenes they would love to be a part of, the details behind the killer’s mask in Hell of a Summer, and why costumes were so crucial to the characters in the movie. Check out the full conversation in the video above, or you can read the transcript below.
Which Horror Movie Would the ‘Hell of a Summer’ Crew Join?

If they could for just one scene …

Image by Federico Napoli

PERRI NEMIROFF: Before I start to talk about the making of the movie, there was one question that crossed my mind last night that I didn’t get to ask, and I feel like you guys have the appreciation for horror to give me some really good answers. So, no pressure, but if you could jump into the horror movie of your choice just to play one specific scene as an actor, what movie would you choose and why?
FRED HECHINGER: I know! For one scene, I want to be the bartender in The Shining. Words of wisdom.
FINN WOLFHARD: That’s great.
HECHINGER: It would be so fun to be in that one scene.
WOLFHARD: Oh, man, that’s a great answer. Honestly, I feel like it’d be fun to be in, like, a Final Destination movie if you got, like, a crazy chain reaction kill, like a crazy, booby trap. Insane. That’d be fun.
HECHINGER: That’s great.
BILLY BRYK: I’d like to be in The Thing when they’re doing the blood tests.
WOLFHARD: That’s great.
BRYK: I think that’d be a fun thing to do.
My instincts were spot-on. You all nailed that question.
Finn Wolfhard Pinpoints What Makes a Teen Movie “Timeless”

“It’s just really important to treat them and really care about them like they’re real people.”

Digging into the making of Hell of a Summer now, one of the first things that I wanted to ask about, because I was revisiting your TIFF interviews for this, was, Finn, you said that your “number one conversation was how annoying it is to see how badly teen movies represent your age group,” and it was making me wonder, what are some things that you think are represented poorly, and how did you go about changing that in Hell of a Summer?
WOLFHARD: I think there’s a common misconception with older filmmakers who are making movies about young people that I think they’re so insecure and convinced that there’s a huge generational divide and that they’ve already failed from the jump, that they’re like, “I want to write a movie about teenagers, but how are we even get to market it in the first place? They’re so different than us!” And it’s like, “Well, now you’re putting yourself down. Now you’re being more out of touch as a writer because you are already setting yourself up to think that there’s this huge gap between what people think is funny.”
There are obviously things that our age group thinks are funny compared to, like, our parents; there are specific jokes that Baby Boomers love that we don’t get as much, but it’s not like they’re completely different creatures or species. The whole thing about movies is that they should be universal, and everyone should be able to watch them. I think it’s important to be able to split the difference and try to talk to the generation that it’s coming out for, and at the same time, try to make something timeless that any age group can watch. Because what’s the fun in that? Then it’s not timeless. Then you have this movie that ages badly, and you can only watch it that year.
BRYK: Or the flip side of that, the movie I think did it best was Eighth Grade. Or you just make the perfect movie.
WOLFHARD: Exactly, exactly.
BRYK: Shout out to Fred.
WOLFHARD: It’s true.

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BRYK: That’s a movie that, because it’s so specific, because it feels like a moment in time, I think that’s a movie that’s going to hold up because it’s like a time capsule. But the idea of, like, chasing trends and trying to stay on top of it and using slang?
WOLFHARD: Yeah, using slang. Slang, also, that goes in, like…
BRYK: Especially like internet slang. It’s very tough. By the time the movie comes out, everything’s going to be so dated anyway, so don’t try so hard to chase what’s happening right now.
HECHINGER: As a lover of movies, you feel it when a movie’s looking down on its audience. Pandering is one of the quickest things to spot. It’s like any interaction—you want mutual respect, and I feel like a movie should do that with its audience, as well.
WOLFHARD: Yeah. I think a lot of specificity kind of went away with teen movies where, like, these characters have their own little weird idiosyncrasies or biases or whatever. It just felt like a lot of teen movies that have come out with a bigger budget or whatever, you’re just watching a version of a character you’ve seen a billion times. I feel like what was great about so many teen movies that we grew up watching in the ‘90s and ‘80s, and even in the early 2000s… Like Eighth Grade is an amazing example of a movie that somehow is contemporary and is about being on social media, but it’s in service of the characters and in service of the movie, and also, every character is so weird. Like, so weird. They all have odd, dark stuff going on, and really specific, like the Jake Ryan character is so specific. It’s just really important to treat them and really care about them like they’re real people. Really, that’s what it is. That’s a long-winded answer, but …
Costume Was Crucial in ‘Hell of a Summer’

“What they wear really matters.”

Image via Neon

Fred, one of my absolute favorite questions to ask is when an actor has an “aha moment” with a character. Was there anything you did, either in prep or on set, that made you feel like, “I have just found who Jason needs to be now?”
HECHINGER: I do think the great experience of filming is you hope you can constantly find new “aha” moments, and as soon as you think you know who you’re playing, other stuff comes up that more specifies or makes that jagged in a new way. But a couple of things come to mind. Early on, I remember our pre-production process, in terms of costume, was really specific. Most of the characters are wearing the same thing for the entire movie, so what they wear really matters; it has to kind of contain and show them in a specific and eccentric way. I remember we found these special collab Vans shoes that he wears in the movie—they’re this light purple shade. When we first found them, there was only one of them in Toronto, which is where we were prepping the movie, and we had to kind of just take this leap of faith and use those and wait for the doubles to come later, because we knew the shoes were too right to not use them out of some cautiousness.
Then, the second thing that comes to mind is, during production, Abby Quinn, who plays Claire, is just a complete genius, artist, and actor, and one of the early scenes we did was this walk and talk, and it’s between Jason and Claire. We thought a lot about that scene and cared about that scene, but the day that we filmed, it was just really, really special. I remember diving in with Abby on camera for the first time in that way. You forget the things you’re thinking about, and you just feel like you’re in the movie, and acting with her really felt like that.
Sometimes Slasher Movie Killers Just Want to Look Iconic

Slay, queen.

Image via Neon

To build on the idea of the shoes and little details, can you guys tell me about picking the right mask for your killer?
WOLFHARD: Yeah. Also, another thing to just quickly say something about Fred’s costume, I remember the conversation that we had was talking about basically the character of Jason, and how do we make his costume and his props the most helpful they can be? So, we looked at things like vests with as many pockets as possible so his character can put things and gadgets into it, and gave him a calculator watch so that if someone needed an equation, or keys strapped to his thing, just so that he always had them handy. So, it’s like, how do we make this character literally just feel like the most helpful person? He wants to be the most helpful person.
BRYK: He has little breath mints in his pocket that you actually never see because there’s a part of the movie that we cut out. But the fact that you can hear the mints in his pocket coming up and down is such a nice little detail for me that Jason has these things with him at all times. And to speak to the mask thing, and everything else we talked about, it’s also the first day of camp, so it’s how everybody’s showing up to present themself as, “I haven’t seen you in a year, this is what I’m wearing.”

Image via Neon

Really, the mask was kind of the same idea. It’s this idea of the killer making a statement, being like, “I’m picking this mask because I think that it will evoke this emotion, or it will feel iconic.” It’s coming from a world of the killer wanting to feel good and look good and feel cool, and then it just so happens that, like, we also wanted it to look like a cool devil mask. So, it was a tough thing to be, like, “How do we make it feel homemade enough and real enough, but then original enough, but then also how do we make it feel kind of classic enough and iconic enough with that symbol of the devil?”
HECHINGER: The aspirational thing, also, to me, is a big part of the movie because everyone dresses up wanting to be these perfect versions of themselves, and then immediately when the horrifying acts start happening, it’s like, not only do the costumes get worn down, but their personalities really come to light. So, that felt important, too, and that was really practical, like all of the stuff that Jason was wearing. I remember there’s a scene in the middle where he blows on a whistle, and I was able to, like, hide that perfectly in one of my many pockets, so it was a treat in that way.

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I feel like you’re building a roadmap for people to dress up as this Jason, not the other Jason, for Halloween.
BRYK: So that’s literally a meme, and that’s sort of a big part of it. We were like, “We want every character to be able to be drawn from memory,” and it’s a dream of ours to have people dress up as Jason, but also the killer—really, the entire ensemble. Everybody has a sort of unique look. We gave them each something that is, I think, very distinct.
Hell of a Summer hits theaters on April 4.

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