In our lives, there are few opportunities to see our dreams through. It is a roll of the dice, but if we seize the moment, take a chance, and give all of ourselves, at least there is peace of mind that could last a lifetime. Living proof, Finn Wolfhard’s love of cinema began when he was a young boy, so landing a starring role in the massively successful and long-running Netflix series Stranger Things is beyond anything he could imagine. A gig that has snowballed into a promising and lengthy career, Wolfhard would go on to other big films such as 2017’s It, 2o24’s Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, and more.
Another young guy named Billy Bryk had similar aspirations in another part of the world. Looking for his chance to shine, Bryk took on various roles, including one in the series Wynonna Earp, before briefly crossing paths with Wolfhard in 2018. Almost as if it was fate, little did they know they would be co-stars in 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and a new friendship was blossoming.
Proof that the universe moves in mysterious ways, the two began exchanging ideas and soon forged a path as co-writers and directors of their original Horror film, Hell of a Summer. Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023, where it received a ton of praise, in 2025, the film finds a bigger audience with an official release through Neon. Arriving in theaters on April 4, 2025, and currently available digitally, Hell of a Summer unifies the old world charm of ’80s Horror with a modern twist, and the result is quite entertaining.
Excited about the work put into their feature debut as filmmakers, Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk sat down to chat about their start in the arts, working together on Hell of a Summer, plus more.
Cryptic Rock – You both have been involved in entertainment for quite some time, doing different things and finding success in those things. How would you describe your journeys thus far working in film and television?
Finn Wolfhard – I have loved movies, filmmaking, and special effects from a young age. I always wanted to be on a set and make films with people. That was always my interest.
My brother is also an actor. His influence on me was massive. I got into acting through him and then ended up having this lucky career that I’m really proud of. It’s been a while now, but I’m pretty proud of everything that’s happened.
Billy Bryk – I’m a little older than Finn, but I haven’t been doing it for nearly as long. This is one of the first big films people will see me in. I grew up with a love of film and around the film industry. I feel incredibly grateful, lucky, and happy to be here.
It’s tough to put into words. My brother’s an actor, and my dad’s an actor. I grew up around the film industry and then got into it after film school.
Cryptic Rock – Very cool. That leads us to where you made Hell of a Summer. You co-wrote and directed the film together. Finn, you have done Horror before with Stranger Things, 2017’s It, etc. Before we dive into the movie, what made you want to make a Horror film?
Finn Wolfhard – It just seemed like a good first feature, a good genre to start with. My whole childhood, I wanted to make a Slasher film. When Billy and I met, we started bonding, hanging out, and loving the same kind of Comedy and coming-of-age Comedy. It was one of those things where it just felt right.
I grew up watching and loving movies like Shaun of the Dead (2004), which were Horror movies disguised as other movies. Shaun of the Dead is about a guy trying to get his girlfriend back, but it’s disguised as a Zombie film, which is also a great Zombie film.
To us, it just felt like a perfect place to start. I think the genres just worked for our sensibility and our influences.
Billy Bryk – I think there was a real opportunity comedically to work within this genre. I felt any situation I was in in real life which felt like it was maybe skewing towards something that was out of a horror film; my instincts, the way that I was behaving, and the people around me were behaving, were funny in a way that I hadn’t seen in too many other films. It, to me, felt like, “Oh, how would I react? How would we react if we were in this really terrible situation?” It would probably be pretty funny. That was where we came at it from. We thought we had the opportunity to make a fun, scary, and funny movie where we could let these characters shine.
Cryptic Rock – Horror is a great avenue to go down in filmmaking. It is a place where you can use your imagination more. Now, with this film, it is a Horror Comedy. Deeper inside, it is also a character study. There are a lot of different characters in this. It shows you lousy character traits that some of us have. Some of these characters are more endearing than others. Was that something you were going for as well?
Finn Wolfhard – Oh, yeah. Definitely.
Billy Bryk – Yeah. The idea behind it was always character first for us. It was character-driven. Sometimes, you’ll set up these characters in movies, and something will go really wrong. Then all the weird insecurities or petty problems they have go away because there’s this massive threat in front of them, which seems to be the most important thing.
But for us, we didn’t want to do that. What we wanted to do was spend the first half hour of the movie showing everybody’s weird insecurities and character flaws. Then, when shit hits the fan and everything starts going badly, we wanted all of those problems just to be amplified.
People are focusing on the wrong thing. My character, for example, is more focused on whether or not people think he’s hot and cool rather than on surviving. With Finn, his character is more interested in how this new relationship develops.
Finn Wolfhard – Yeah, if this girl likes him. He almost cares more about this kind of triangle of trying to make his best friend happy and his new love interest. This is instead of the fact that a masked killer in the camp isn’t the number one priority.
Billy Bryk – Yeah, and it’s not that it isn’t a threat or that it isn’t a real issue for them, because it is. They can’t help but be themselves. That was very interesting for us. Same thing with the main character, Jason. You think it’s maybe this facade that he’s putting on, this chipper, sweet guy trying to be the leader. Then he’s so consistent the whole film.
Finn Wolfhard – He really believes he is.
Billy Bryk – It’s just who he is. He still wants to be a leader and wants people to like him. That’s what excited us most. I’m glad you felt it was a character study because that was intentional for us.
Cryptic Rock – Most certainly. You mentioned the character of Jason. You sometimes question a little bit, “Okay, is this a facade?” As you said, it seems genuine, but you start learning immediately what is real. It looks authentic, and you know there is no way he could be behind what is happening. That is also the Hell of a Summer’s tragedy: people mistreat this nice, genuinely sweet guy.
Finn Wolfhard – Yeah, originally, that concept came from a place of comedy of piling on to the nicest guy. Sometimes that just happens in these weird group settings where it’s almost like Lord of the Flies. The characters we wrote are also easily swayed and brainwashed into thinking a certain thing. It was fun being able to write that.
But yeah, it is sad. Claire talks about it before Jason goes back to the camp. She’s like, “You don’t have to do this. They’re super mean to you and think you’re the killer.” He’s like, “I don’t care.” There’s this happiness or melancholyness where he’s in the same way that Billy was saying, where he can’t help himself. Even if they don’t think he’s the camp leader, he believes that’s true. That’s what makes him him, and that’s what’s important.
At the same time, it’s very sad because they don’t see him as that. In the end, they do ’cause he saves the day in his own way.
Billy Bryk – I like the idea that he was the hero without really changing all that much. He does ultimately accept that it’s time to move on, and this situation propels him into the next stage of his life. But it’s not that his personality completely changes where he becomes a badass or something. He’s badass in his own sweet, goofy, awkward, nice way.
He’s just a nice guy whose optimism doesn’t get trampled. Even though everybody’s awful to him, he’s still a really sweet guy.
Cryptic Rock – That is the positive thing that makes you feel good after the film. There are many different elements in this film. You have some homage to ’80s Horror in here. One of the things that came to mind was maybe 1983’s Sleepaway Camp. Tell us what influenced you with the elements you threw into the film.
Finn Wolfhard – It was honestly a lot of different stuff, even though it is a Slasher movie. We watched all the quintessential Slashers, Prom Night (1980), The Slumber Party Massacre (1982), Sleepaway Camp (1983), The Burning (1981), and all the Scream films. We tried to educate ourselves as much as possible about this genre. What to pick and choose, and how they use their score and their editing. But then we also looked just as much, if not more sometimes, at movies that weren’t Slashers. Halloween is a Slasher that we looked at a lot, too, but other Carpenter films like The Thing (1982), The Fog (1980), or others like An American Werewolf in London (1981) were also ones that we would talk about, maybe more for aesthetics.
Billy Bryk – Yeah, I think absolutely from a filmmaking perspective, a lot of it was influenced by Comedies, but something that I think we wanted to incorporate from those camp Slasher movies from the ’80s was there’s a sense of grit. There’s a handmade feeling even with things like practical gore effects and the way that the light is.
Many of these older films were made without a lot of resources and money, and there’s a real charm to that. There’s something almost cozy about that feeling of having dark scenes feel truly dark. That is not the case with a lot of contemporary Horror films or contemporary Slasher Comedies; everything’s so bright all the time, you can see everything so perfectly clearly. For us, it was about how we could make this feel cinematic and contemporary, but also have the sort of DNA of those old-school camp Slashers?
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