tyannosaurusrex

[tyannosaurusrex]

"Hell of a Summer" Movie Review

A new addition into the Finn Wolfhard MLM cinematic universe!

All jokes aside, this movie is a really solid feature-length debut for Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk as writers and directors. Hell of a Summer is a funny movie with really good energy. And even when the occasional joke falls flat or there's a weak moment of acting for someone, this movie is very quick to bounce back. The amount of genuine laugh-out-loud moments and great acting performances truly outweigh the "bad" here.

There's some really interesting and exciting techniques and transitions in this movie. The lake party scene immediately comes to mind as everything about that shot looked SO cool. The cross-transition murder scene x wood cutting was also super fun to watch.

While on the topic of the kills, this movie is not very gory, like at all. The lack of gore really sucks when you think about the amount of kills in this movie that have super intriguing, unique—and possibly very funny—concepts (the guitar kill, the peanut allergy kill, etc.). This film really lacks when it comes to SHOWING the viewers the kills, this could be due to a lack of funding or simply a stylistic choice but it unfortunately left me thinking about how much greater each kill scene could be as we went by again not seeing any impact. The cuts and transitions used during kill scenes in this movie are interesting enough to almost make up for it though, but I still would've loved to see some more intensity.

Acting-wise, Billy Bryk and Fred Hechinger are definitely standouts in this movie! Bryk is truly hilarious and plays an insecure, asshole-ish guy in a way that comes across as SO endearing. He brings life to every scene he's in and there's never a dull moment with him (also I fw the puka). Hechinger is hilariously awkward and genuinely so charming in this (and everything he's in) and his more emotionally charged scenes also managed to hold a lot of weight.

The third act of this movie is where it peaks (which signifies a really solid buildup here). The last 20 minutes of this film is filled with so much ENERGY! And the fight between D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai and Billy Bryk's characters is definitely the biggest highlight.

All in all, this was a really fun watch. Hell of a Summer is pretty awesome and I can't wait to see what’s next for everyone involved in it!

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•••••••••• A/N: As someone who's been a fan of Finn since way back in 2017, it makes me so proud to see him have the opportunity to create something like this a let his vision come to life. Knowing all the work he and Billy Bryk put into his movie genuinely makes my heart happy.

Might make a video version of this review in the future! Thanks for reading!

[tyannosaurusrex]

Made a video yapping about my favorite show, Degrassi!