Hell Of A Summer: Release date, plot, cast and more about Finn Wolfhard's upcoming comedy horror film

Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard is set to return with a new horror project titled Hell of a Summer. The film is a comedy horror thriller that premiered at the 48th Toronto International Film Festival. Wolfhard has co-written and co-directed this project with Billy Bryk, who also co-stars with him in a key role. The film is scheduled to come out in the US theaters on April 18, 2025, almost two years after it debuted in Toronto.

Hell of a Summer marks the feature directorial debut of Wolfhard and Bryk. Before this, they co-starred in films such as Saturday Night (2024), When You Finish Saving the World (2022), and Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021).

Their new film has actor Fred Hechinger (Gladiator II, Kraven the Hunter) in the central role of Jason, and cast also includes Pardis Saremi (Death and Other Details), D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (Reservation Dogs), Abby Quin (Little Women), Wolfhard, and Bryk. According to the synopsis attached to the film's trailer:

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 camp grounds, brutally picking counselors off one by one.

Let's find out more details about Finn Wolfhard's new comedy horror film.

When will Hell of a Summer come out in 2025? Release details explored

Hell of a Summer will be out in theaters on April 18, 2025, in the United States, although the film had its world premiere at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival in 2023.

In 2024, Variety reported that Neon, the independent studio behind 2024's Cuckoo and Longlegs, would help Wolfhard's film find distribution in the US. So, his fans in the country will finally be able to catch him on a big screen in his new role.

***Hell of a Summer*: Plot and trailer explored**

Neon has just shared a new trailer for Hell of a Summer and it promises a lot of thrills along with mystery and humor. It shows 24-year-old Jason (Fred Hechinger) going to a summer camp for teenagers. Somehow, things go south as they discover that a masked killer is on the loose. The trailer offers a glimpse of the film's slasher horror elements and focuses on the generational distance between Jason and his co-workers.

As reported by Variety, Wolfhard and Bryk wanted to represent Gen Z characters authentically on the screen. That's why they decided to make this action comedy. Wolfhard spoke about this during an interview in 2023. He said:

“Our number one conversation was how annoying it is to see new teen movies and how badly our age group is represented. And we’re like, ‘Why don’t we just do it?’”

At the time, Wolfhard and Bryk also mentioned Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead as a major inspiration for their film. Bryk revealed how the 2004 zombie apocalypse film inspired their artistic vision:

“To us, that was kind of the epitome of a film that does homage to classic horror films while also being a really great character-driven comedy.”

Hell of a Summer cast and characters explored: Who plays whom in this psychological thriller?

Hell of a Summer casts Fred Hechinger at the center of the narrative as Jason, a camp counselor who is joined by a bunch of teens. The rest of the cast: