Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk Talk Directing Hell Of A Summer, Slasher Team Ups, and Subverting Expectations With Killer Reveal
In Hell Of A Summer, a mysterious Devil masked killer begins picking off camp counselors one by one ahead of the summer season at Camp Pineway. Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado spoke co-directors and writers Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk and actors Fred Hechinger, Abby Quinn, Pardis Saremi, and D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai about the new horror slasher. Be warned, there are spoilers ahead!
Wolfhard and Bryk are no strangers to working together, which set them up for success them when it came to directing their first feature film. “What really helped us on this one is that we had the same end goal in mind. From the very beginning of writing the movie, we realized that we had a very similar sensibility and we wanted to make a movie that was very similar. So as we wrote it, we just honed in on this movie. We shared the same movie in our mind so that was really, really helpful,” Bryk told me. “I think had there have even been more conflict in the writing process at the beginning, we maybe would have realized like, ‘Oh, maybe one of us should direct this and the other not,’ but because it was this great collaboration from the very start, I never was worried about having two cooks in the kitchen on this one.”
“It is great writing with someone else because you just have this shared vision. It was awesome because if you forgot something then your partner picks up the slack and vice versa,” Wolfhard agreed. “It's like a push and pull constantly in a really creative good way.”
At the center of this camp slasher is Jason Hochberg, played by Hechinger, who is stuck in a weird place between childhood and adulthood and not wanting to let that go. “It was such a key to who Jason is. He loves Camp Pineway more than anybody else in the world and he also has to grow out of it. I relate to that and I find transitions to be very difficult,” he explained. “It's just so hard when you start caring about things and you're like, ‘Now what? Now I have to pack up and care about something else.’ I think he has that with that place and I also think like he has a real sense of identity in that.”
Quinn plays opposite Hechinger as Claire who find a bond with Jason in the middle of this killer nightmare. “That's the crux of her entire journey in this movie. She comes into this movie as a loner and an outsider and is not really connecting with people. She has to decide for herself whether she wants to take a leap of faith and try to connect with people or just save herself,” she shared. “In the end, when she does return to save Jason, it's a big moment for her because it is showing herself and also the audience that she is ready and willing to put herself out there. She's not really trying to stay in her shell anymore. That was really fun and just made me happy to see that that's the end of her journey.”
Stereotypically in slasher films, the killers are white guys, which this film subverts. “We saw so many different actors and these tapes stood out to us immediately as just being such unique special takes on these characters,” said Bryk, with Wolfhard adding: “Carmen Cuba, our casting director, is so amazing. From the beginning, we wanted to read everyone. We didn't want it to feel like this white summer camp. The people that I knew growing up were not just white kids and I feel like there's a lot of movies that do that. For us, it was important to not only have some inclusivity in that, but also the tapes were so incredible and they really understood the film, so that was the main thing for me.”
“D’Pharoah said something similar. He just was like, ‘As I was reading, I just was picturing this being a white guy.’ The second he told us that and then the second we saw his tape, I was like this is such a special performer,” Bryk continued. “This is such a special take on this character. It really just became like it has to be him.”
The killers are revealed to be Demi and Mike, played by Iranian-American actress Saremi and Oji-Cree First Nations and Guyanese actor Woon-A-Tai, in an attempt to gain fame. “I thought it was awesome playing a killer. Especially because a lot of times in horror films, people of color die first. So killing first is way better in my opinion. I was excited to do that,” laughed Woon-A-Tai. “We really beat those stereotypes. We came out on top.”
Saremi was thrilled to be a female villain who was the “mastermind” behind the whole plan, especially one who seemed underestimated at first. “We were just running that monologue, running that scene over and over. We had so much fun with it and the guys were just so willing to mess around,” she shared. “We did so much blocking that day in the moment being like, ‘What if we tried it like that? What if you're circling him? What if you catch the light in the knife?’ We found some really cool moments.”
Woon-A-Tai got to have his own unhinged killer monologue too. “I’m screaming in his face, half the time spitting in his face, top of my lungs, while there's like flames behind us. It was so much fun, especially his whole reason with the whole sex thing,” he laughed. “It felt so weird just coming out of my mouth half the time. I'm just like screaming in his face about weird stuff, man.”
“I just remember it being this big day where people who were not even filming just came to set because there was so much excitement around that scene and what you guys were coming up with,” continued Quinn. “We were all just sitting in a tent eating donuts trying to hear what was happening inside.”
While not everyone makes it out of Camp Pineway alive, slashers notoriously never stay gone for long. The cast shared who they’d love to see their Devil masked killer team up with in a potential sequel. “Megan Fox in Jennifer's Body,” said Saremi. “I think she's the only person Demi would listen to, that's why.”
“Damn, that's a really good question. A lot of these killers are so silent. They're so quiet, like I can't even talk to these guys half the time. Probably the guys from Scream because they seem crazy and, I don't know, relatable, I guess,” explained Woon-A-Tai. “‘Cause half the time, Michael's quiet. He's not saying shit to me when I'm trying to talk to him. Jason too. He's probably trying to kill me too, right? He doesn't like people. You've seen Freddy vs Jason. He doesn't like other killers.”
Quinn teased an animated sidekick who hasn’t killed before like Courage the Cowardly Dog, while Wolfhard and Bryk are down for an Alien vs Predator crossover. “Maybe the xenomorph. Something else coming in that's maybe of a different planet. The stakes are raised,” said Bryk, with Wolfhard adding: “Predator versus the Devil.”
The cast of Hell of A Summer is filled with actors that have taken on iconic roles in the past — but would any of them survive in this slasher? Hechinger went back and forth over his The White Lotus character Quinn Mossbacher’s chance of survival, especially knowing there weren’t any canoes or kayaks at Camp Pineway. “He wouldn’t be able to paddle away,” he shared, which was Quinn’s big move in the season one finale.
Meanwhile, Wolfhard is no stranger to battling bad guys in Stranger Things. “Is it dickish of me to say yes? Because I do think he would,” he said about his character Mike Wheeler surviving the Devil. Things got a little tricky for Bryk’s character Billy from Wynonna Earp as he is technically already dead: “He already was a demon, if I recall correctly. I did a lot of demon work. I suppose he [would]. I think everybody in that show is pretty tough.”
Hell Of A Summer is playing in theaters.
