Hell of a Summer (2023)
Pack Your Body Bags.
The backlog won’t clear itself, so I’m working my way through some while inevitably adding more to it as well. I figure it’s been long enough since i did a horror movie - even though I guess you could say the science fiction one from last week had some horror elements in it - so it’s time for the old palette cleanser. Don’t worry, everything about the trailer tells me this one should be more of a funny homage to slashers past, so it’ll probably have something to it more than just a body count. Not that a body count is bad in a movie by any means. Anyways, to use their own tag line for the segue - pack your body bags, it’s going to be one Hell of a Summer.
If you want to stay as far away from the slasher business as possible, don’t get in the camp market. Two folks are out by the lake, having a jolly time getting ready to get camp up and going for another season - until they are brutally murdered. The counselors all arrive - and a quirky bunch they are - and start settling into all the classic camp counselor shenanigans, but by the end of night one the body count is already rising! Discover who you hate and who you can stand, and take bets on who might make it out alive and who our killer is - this ride might not be the most off-the-rails of slasher movies, but that doesn’t mean it needs to mishandle it all. That said - story isn’t necessarily this one’s strong point, as it really doesn’t deviate much from what you’d think. Most the stuff you’d give it credit for originality because of is in other departments, but the story does still provide for some pretty good writing when it comes to dialogue and interactions.
Actors do great here. Admittedly, I don’t recognize most of them - although I have seen some in other things and just not realized it, and of course the one main recognizable one is what put the movie on my radar to look for a trailer to see if I wanted to watch it in the first place. In the beginning it feels rather like everyone is just going to play into the vapid stereotypes that you’d expect from it, but some of them do get to have some fun with things and the entire thing has this air of “not entirely serious” without fourth wall breaking to make sure the audience is on the joke. Character’s that you assume you won’t like might end up becoming endearing by the end, whilst others might fall exactly into the spectrum of “somebody kill this guy” that you expected them to.
Characters aren’t the most depth-filled backstory rich folks around, but they never needed to be. They have enough to them that you get a feel for their character, and sometimes it’ll play into that to do some twists and turns here and there. The lead two are a bit endearing, and the entire thing does have that feeling of “loveable losers” to the cast for the most part. That said, some will be more annoying depending on the person, and a good number really don’t have an arc per say - in fact, I’d actually say one of the B-team characters has the thing closest resembling being a different person then how they felt at the start as far as you wishing they would die, so you can tell you’ve got some folks who watch and enjoy horror stuff (camp slashers included) and wanted to do something to play with it at least to some degree. Think of it as a ton of layered easter eggs really - broken into their little components, it’s nothing super original sounding, but when it’s all mixed up it plays out quite entertaining and you really don’t mind the flavor.
Counselling some camps
This thing is also packing a bunch of humor. Yes, that means you all get to be clobbered by my constant saying - humor is subjective, so mileage will vary. That said, I laughed a few times here. It does have some stuff that’s a bit slapstick, especially with the main dude lead who can be a bit over-blown about things, but more than that it’s just darn good line writing. For any part that you might find bland, they’ll have another line setup that nails it. Admittedly, some of it might be more offensive to others - such as vegans might not like the vegan jokes as an example - but there’s still plenty of stuff like “group stupid” to laugh about (such as most the following scenes after the crew decide they figured out who the killer is).
Costume work is pretty just what it is - modern setting, modern attire, and that’s good but doesn’t really stand out. The killer costume is rather meh in my opinion here - it’s really just a classic “person in a robe with a devil mask on” - another batch of “Fitting but not stand out” in the costume set. Setting itself has plenty of indoors and outdoors, what with it being a camp, and you don’t really feel to bored with it given how it splits things up. Effects and props do a good job, and most would be happy to know that they are practical for plenty of spots. In a bit of a contentious spot for that same crowd however, there isn’t an incredible list of on screen kills to be had, even if you do get a lot of aftermaths one point or another (like seeing the opening scene death with a guitar in the head, but never actually seeing that kill itself). There are still a handful in there however, even if it’s never really graphic violence in so much just a bunch of blood sprays.
Audio is good. Balance is fine. They made a jingle for the camp, as all camps love their jingles, and there was one song at the start that I did in fact recognize, but beyond that it’s admittedly all empty as the rest of my head by the time credits hit. Acting line deliveries are great, helping out with some of those joke punchlines. Editing is also well done here, giving some back and forths at moments to do that “fill in the blanks” with a few of the kills and keeping track of what everyone is up to at a given time. For the thinking folks, you’d probably find a surprising amount in here, with some commentary on some more modern stuff like feminism and allergies to some extent while also adding in some of that classic relationships and things in addition to killer motivations. Yes, the killer does actually have motivations in this one, so it’s less just slasher for slasher sake and with a thought path going. That said, I wasn’t really looking deep into commentary as usual - I signed on for slasher, found myself having more fun because of the humor, and really never put more thought into it outside of trying to guess if someone was going to get it next or not.
Murderface Murderface Murderface.
This was a fun time. If you like horror comedies, this one isn’t a bad choice. Yes, it still has it’s serious parts to it, but for the most part it’s rather goofy. It hits the spot for what I imagine it was going for as far as the homage/parody aspects, and gets people doing a pretty good job of acting to that intended target. It looks fine, sounds fine, and gets some good laughs - even if both the violence effects from the kills and the jokes will probably be hit or miss depending on the person. At the time of me writing this, it’s actually on Hulu for free, which is part of the reason for me doing it tonight as opposed to something else - and for that low cost it well lives up to expectations. That said, I could see myself not feeling bad about buying this movie as well - although the number of folks that would probably want to watch it outright isn’t that high in my group even if they would probably enjoy it after watching it.