Hell of a Summer: Release date, cast, plot, and everything to know

Almost two years after its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2023, Hell of a Summer will be released in US theaters on April 4, 2025. This marks the directorial and writing debut of Stranger Things actor Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk from When You Finish Saving the World (2022).

Hell of a Summer is a slasher-film-meets-teenage-comedy packed in a thriller. While 30West financed and produced the film, NEON picked up the film for distribution across the US. The film stars Fred Hechinger from Gladiator Ⅱ (2024) as a 24-year-old camp counselor, along with Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk in the cast.

The director duo of Wolfhard and Bryk met on the sets of Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021). They've also worked together on When You Finish Saving the World (2022) and Saturday Night (2024).

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Hell Of a Summer: Release date and cast

The cast of Hell of a Summer (Image Via Instagram/ @billybryk)

The film is set for release on April 4, 2025, in the United States. A worldwide release and any possible OTT collaboration in the future are yet to be confirmed.

The cast for Hell Of a Summer has:

• Fred Hechinger as Jason
• Abby Quinn as Claire
• D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai as Mike
• Billy Bryk as Bobby
• Finn Wolfhard as Chris
• Pardis Saremi as Demi
• Rosebud Baker
• Adam Pally
• Krista Nazaire as Shannon
• Matthew Finlan as Ezra
• Julia Lalonde as Noelle
• Daniel Gravelle as Ari
• Julia Doyle as Miley
• Susan Coyne

Fred Hechinger is Jason Hochberg, a 24-year-old camp counselor. His character is seen trying to control the unruly teenage counselors. The group consists of D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai from Reservation Dogs (2021) as Mike, Abby Quinn of Little Women (2019) as Claire, Paradis Saremi from Death and Other Details (2024), and Matthew Finlan of All the Lost Ones (2024) as Ezra.

In an interview with Wonderland from their Spring 2023 issue, Billy Bryk elaborates on their intent to go for a teenage slasher comedy genre by saying:

“We’ve tried to make this really energetic and funny ensemble comedy that represents the generation of kids that we grew up around. There are a lot of specific characters that couldn’t have existed before Gen Z, but we also wanted it to feel timeless like the comedies that we grew up watching”.

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Hell of a Summer: Plot and everything to know

The official Redband trailer for Hell of a Summer was dropped on January 22, 2025, on NEON's YouTube channel. It describes the plot of the movie as:

“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.”

In an interview on Deadline Hollywood's YouTube channel uploaded on September 16, 2023, Wolfhard admits he and Bryk finished the first draft quickly. They started proceeding with production in 2020. The original plan for Wolfhard and Bryk was to make a teen comedy. After realizing their common liking for the genre, they added the horror angle to it.

In the same interview, Bryk admits to being introduced to slasher films through his roommate and friend Jamie, who had written a horror short film. They borrowed the concept and changed it from a paranormal to a slasher film. They later added a comedic angle, creating Hell of a Summer.

The film has seen a long road to completion and is finally up for its official release.

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