The movie is pitched to us as an 80's slasher made today. I guess that is accurate, but it's not a studio slasher from the 80's; Cruel Summer is one of those shot-on-film "movied" that a couple for friends made with their dad's camcorder. All of the acting is absolutely awful, sometimes offensively so (a couple of the actors are trying, but it's just not landing) the story hardly counts as a story (there is essentially no plot. We are told they are going to a secluded house to have a murder mystery party, but the house is right next to a pretty busy road and they never do the murder mystery at all), the kills are fucking terrible (the sound effects are laughably bad and all the effects, both practical and CGI, look like shit), and none of the characters have enough personality to make them cheerable or hateable. The sound! How can I forget the sound? Most of the movie is ADR, but the rest is so inconsistent, that there were multiple times where I wasn't even sure if I was supposed to be able to hear the dialog because the mics are just barely picking it up. Think back to shit like Splatter Farm, that is what Cruel Summer is; like, it's not even good enough for Tubi. I think the only reason this movie exists is that someone wanted to see their friend naked, so they wrote an entire "movie" around that scene (which was way too long and added nothing to the film). I'm sure the crew had fun watching the movie, but I think that was the entire audience for it.
The movie is pitched to us as an 80's slasher made today. I guess that is accurate, but it's not a studio slasher from the 80's; Cruel Summer is one of those shot-on-film "movied" that a couple for friends made with their dad's camcorder. All of the acting is absolutely awful, sometimes offensively so (a couple of the actors are trying, but it's just not landing) the story hardly counts as a story (there is essentially no plot. We are told they are going to a secluded house to have a murder mystery party, but the house is right next to a pretty busy road and they never do the murder mystery at all), the kills are fucking terrible (the sound effects are laughably bad and all the effects, both practical and CGI, look like shit), and none of the characters have enough personality to make them cheerable or hateable. The sound! How can I forget the sound? Most of the movie is ADR, but the rest is so inconsistent, that there were multiple times where I wasn't even sure if I was supposed to be able to hear the dialog because the mics are just barely picking it up. Think back to shit like Splatter Farm, that is what Cruel Summer is; like, it's not even good enough for Tubi. I think the only reason this movie exists is that someone wanted to see their friend naked, so they wrote an entire "movie" around that scene (which was way too long and added nothing to the film). I'm sure the crew had fun watching the movie, but I think that was the entire audience for it.
