Director – Scott Tepperman (Nightblade, Hell’s Bells)
Starring – Ashley McCain (Black Creek, Timepiece), Bridget Linda Froemming (Table Dance, So, I Guess I’m a Superhero), and H. Marie
Release Date – 2021
Rating – 3/5
Most of you may have noticed how much I love a good slasher. We get a fun killer, usually masked, with a straight forward story with a small sometimes predictable twist and some blood and boobs. Slashers are my go to when I’m looking for something to watch when I don’t have something on my plate to review.
A few days ago my friend and filmmaker Sean Donohue tagged me on a post from director and actor Scott Tepperman. Tepperman was looking sites to cover his newest slasher Cruel Summer. I’m not one to turn down a new slasher so I agreed to check it out. Thanks Scott for allowing Horror Society and myself the opportunity to check this one out!
**Spoiler Alert** The film follows a group of college friends who plan a murder mystery party at a relatives house as one last get together before they go their separate ways for the summer. However, their night of booze and pretend murder takes a dark turn when members of their group go missing one by one before they realize they are involved in a real murder mystery. **Spoiler Alert**
I was born in the mid-80s and grew up in the 90s so a lot of the slashers of my childhood were Scream clones that just didn’t do it for me. As an adult I started to appreciate these types of slashers a little more but I’m still a classic slasher fan. It’s understandable why so many indie filmmakers take on slashers. It’s a simple formula that just requires a cast, a decent location, and blood. Cruel Summer does a solid enough job at giving the viewers a modern slasher that pays tribute to the golden age of slashers but there is still plenty of room for improvement.
The acting in this one wasn’t bad but I found myself just not caring for the characters or their personalities. What I like about slashers is there is always that one or two characters that stand out. Sadly, we don’t really have that here. The cast does the best with what they were given but I would have liked to see a little more time spent on character development and characters that actually stood out.
The story for this one does us the standard slasher formula but takes liberties with certain aspects. The film follows a group of young adults as they are butchered one by one by a masked killer that is eventually revealed that he is killing because he was wronged some years gone by. This is a staple of my favorite slashers, however, I wasn’t a fan of the killer. The killer was extremely dry and could have remained faceless for most of the movie. In fact, the movie would have been more effective with he was a true masked killer until the reveal at the end. Aside from that, we get a lot of dialogue heavy scenes that does very little to progress the story along. Some of the scenes could be cut to help the flow of the film without compromising the story.
Finally, the kills are what sold me on this one. These deaths are fucking brutal and make use of some seriously impressive practical effects. I found myself rewinding several times because I was so fucking impressed by how well they were done. These deaths are a must see for genre fans and the film’s saving grace. Overall, Cruel Summer is a movie that has some room to grow but the bloodshed we see is something that will stick with you days after watching it. It’s uneven but well worth the time. Check it out.
