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(Left to right) Finn Wolfhard, Fred Hechinger and Billy Bryk attend Neon's 'Hell Of A Summer' New ... More York Premiere on April 01, 2025.
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Movies such as the Scream reboot, Freaky, Heart Eyes, and now Hell of a Summer aren’t just genre revivals; they're a clear message to Hollywood from a key demographic.
"The mistake is chasing something that feels too contemporary. A movie takes so long to make and get out to an audience that if you are trying to have the most up-to-date slang and references and speak to the kids, you've missed the window by the time the movies come out. It’s going to feel dated," explains Billy Bryk, who co-wrote and co-directed the coming-of-age horror comedy with Stranger Things' Finn Wolfhard.
"There are so many people making comedy sketches on TikTok and Instagram that you can consume comedy immediately, which speaks to what's happening right now in a way that, like movies can't. People must focus on letting movies be movies and not make movies feel like content or memes. Make more movies that may feel less zeitgeisty and more timeless."
The pair of cinephiles, who also star in the Hell of a Summer, which will exclusively be in theaters on Friday, April 3, 2025, were on a clear mission right out of the gate.
"We wanted to reintroduce the blend of genres and recontextualize it for a contemporary audience," Wolfhard explains. "We’re in a weird place not only in the world but also in the film industry. It has felt like a transitional period for a few years, and a lot of that also has to do with many big film companies who make amazing movies but have so much money they don’t know what to do with it. What used to happen in the 70s, 80s, and 90s was that a studio wouldn't make two $100 million movies; they would make twenty $10 million movies, and you would have these smaller films that could really breathe and had their own sort of time."
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