Panic Fest 2025: Hell of a Summer blends a teen comedy/throwback slasher to (mostly) satisfying results

The Panic Fest horror/genre film festival is currently running in KC for its 2025 season at Screenland Armour. These film reviews are from indie and studio horror/comedy/sci-fi features premiering right now in the Northland, or hitting major theaters/VOD soon. Catch up with all our coverage here and there’s still time to get tickets for individual screenings at the Panic Fest 2025 website.

The most important thing to know going into Hell of a Summer is that while it’s billed (correctly) as a horror-comedy, the vibe is more Superbad than Sleepaway Camp. If you go in with those expectations managed, you’ll have a good time. Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk’s summer camp slasher sendup doesn’t completely satisfy on the genre front, but the dialogue, characters and performances are impressively sharp.

Jason (Fred Hechinger) is a veteran counselor at Camp Pineway, a Crystal Lake-esque summer camp where he also spent years as a camper. However, as he nears his mid-20s and faces increasing judgment from his younger fellow counselors (and his mom), Jason is finally realizing his time at his beloved Pineway may be coming to an end.

That turns out to be true in a literal sense: A mysterious masked killer has offed Pineway’s beloved directors (Adam Pally and Rosebud Baker), and has their bloody sights set on Jason and the camp’s crop of trainee counselors.

As the body count rises, so do suspicions about the killer’s identity, the counselors’ insecurities and overall horniness (this is a summer camp slasher, after all).

Wolfhard and Bryk (who also co-wrote and co-star) are shockingly good screenwriters given that both of them are under 25, with a Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg-esque ear for funny, believable, character-forward dialogue.

Unsurprisingly, that dialogue seems to suit the two of them best as performers, particularly Bryk as hilariously insecure, puka shell-wearing Bobby. It’s easy to tell that Bryk and Wolfhard are friends as well as collaborators in how they enjoy writing for and bouncing off each other.

Hell of a Summer gets those coming-of-age comedy vibes right (Wet Hot American Summer is clearly also an influence in spots), but horror—despite being the framework for the story—often takes a back seat. A good number of kills happen offscreen, to the point where, when the movie does offer a properly gory death, the dominant reaction is “finally.”

For all the mayhem, there’s more running around in the dark in this movie than legitimate scares.

That criticism is more indicative of the fact that Hell of a Summer is actually a different movie than what its genre trappings indicate. There’s nothing wrong with that approach, but it does create some weaknesses that might not be there if the movie leaned a little harder into its horror framework than it does. The killer reveal in particular is a little disappointing, though it leads to a satisfying enough payoff down the line. If a little more time were spent on stakes and structure rather than establishing hangout dynamics, said reveal would be easily beefed up.

Overall, what works about Hell of a Summer works well enough that it makes for a fun experience, especially if you watch it with an enthusiastic crowd. It’s a welcome approach to an established genre that takes the Rogen and Goldberg school of sophomoric humor to slightly more progressive (and distinctly Gen Z-flavored) places.

The fact that it’s easy to point out ways Hell of a Summer could easily have its cake and eat it too is a little disappointing, but it also establishes Wolfhard and Bryk as talents worth paying attention to.

As first films go, this one has a strong voice and an affable vibe that suggests the pair will only get more interesting as they develop.