Summerween Starter Pack

Kris 0:00

On October 5th, 2012, the Disney Channel aired episode 12 of Gravity Falls Season 1, and that episode was titled Summerween. In it, the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon celebrates Halloween twice a year because, as Grunkle Stan explains, the locals simply love Halloween too much to wait. They carve jack-o'-melons into the jack-o'-lanterns, trekker tree, and even contend with the local legend Summerween Trickster, a creature who's made of discarded loser candy that eats children who don't show proper Summerween spirit. It was a great episode, and as it turns out, it was also a prophetic one. Because if we fast forward to 2025, Summerween exploded. What started as a niche Gravity Falls fan tradition actually went fully mainstream. Retailers started selling Halloween merchandise in June, Lego dropped a Summerween Home Decor line, and even now in 2026, Spirit Halloween has dropped a terrifier Summerween line. Beyond the commercial craze though, we want to explore what Summerween means for horror fans specifically. Because for us, it's not a TikTok trend. It's a genuine extension of the way that we've already lived. We never stopped watching horror in the summer, or even needed a holiday to really justify it. But our culture has finally caught up and we want to make sure that you're set up to make the most of the season. Welcome to your Summerween Star Pack. Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hackerslash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. And if this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. My name is Chris, I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast, and this week I'm joined by the classic horror connoisseur, Sean.

Sean 1:34

I know what you did last summer.

Kris 1:36

Now, folks, one of the many ways you can actually celebrate summer ween is by doing what many folks do, which is watch a lot more horror movies during the summer season. Now, as I mentioned before, we don't stick around waiting for this. We haven't stopped watching horror movies during the summer. We just ramp it up a bit in the fall. But I think a great place for us to start, especially grounded in who we are as a podcast, we're a horror movie podcast. I think we can start building out a watch list and some recommendations if you are trying to curate and craft your summer ween watch list. But before we even get to those specific movies, I think it's also important to even think about what makes a good summer ween movie in the first place.

Sean 2:18

Yeah, I mean it's a great question. I think when you really try to look at what makes a great summer ween movie, it's gotta have the feel. You gotta have the feeling that you are in a spooky summer. You gotta have, you know, uh a movie where you can feel the the heat, you can feel the sweat, the you know, the daylight, the endless daylight, the long nights, the the the you know, dirt roads, the sticky, sweaty experience, the you can almost feel the humidity, all of these things help to define a summer ween movie.

Kris 2:55

Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong. So hot, sticky, sweaty. Okay, it just sounds so fucking gross. The more you say that, the more gross it sounds. But I think there are a couple ways that you can look at it. Is this the moment where the last firework has launched on the 4th of July? And now you're like, fuck yeah, the next major holiday is Halloween. So now we're in spooky season. If that's you, I'm here for it. Please, by all means. I still technically have some paper plates in my cupboard from last Halloween that are just jack-o'-lanterns. I've been eating off of those lately. We we had some time. But another option that you have is to think about is this where you start getting in some different types of horror movies so that your palette is completely free, open, and clear to have more seasonally relevant picks as you get into the fall.

Sean 3:46

Yeah, for sure. I think you know, you look at summer, what is summer, right? Summer is active, summer horror should be active, you know, fall horror, any other time of the year, fall, winter, whatever. I think you know, you think horror movies for haunted houses, grief, ghosts, family trauma, you know, these types of things. But when you when you go into summer horror, you want to see more of the cars and the road trips and the boats and camping and swimming and parties, and these are different settings. So you can really, depending on the time of year you're in, you're getting different vibes by different settings.

Kris 4:25

Yeah, you're not wrong. I mean, even just thinking about a couple different categories that you could have. One, I think it's the coming of age and the summer nights of it all. It is thinking about what summer meant to you as a kid, and then watching relevant horror movies that kind of spark that feeling and that sensation again. That's one. Two, summer camp slashers. Who are we as a horror movie podcast? If we're not talking about summer camp slashers, from your Angela Bakers to your Jason Voorhees, you have so many options there. Then you think about those road trips, vacations, etc. There's really a lot to assess before you even get to let's say, I know what you did last summer with a Fourth of July movie.

Sean 5:04

Yeah, a hundred percent. You gotta have that defining factor of a summer ween movie. You know, you know, you a summer ween movie is like a uh it's just a horror movie where summer isn't just a part of the calendar, right? It's a part of the whole vibe, and that's what you're really looking for when you try to figure out what is gonna separate a great horror movie and a great summer ween movie. It's something that gives you the vibes of summer that distinctly does not feel like October.

Kris 5:38

And I think it's a really safe, safe angle to play it on. So with that, I think it's time for us to actually start making some recommendations by category so folks can start building out their summer ween watch list.

Sean 5:50

Let's do it.

Kris 5:51

There's so many different ways that you can slice this. You can just go movies that look hot, you can go movies that are actually set in summer, you can go with movies that are summer adjacent. But I think what we can do is actually go a f by category by category and even give just like two to three of our own picks per category to help folks curate uh a summer ween watch list. But let's first start with summer nights. Thinking about coming of age. I think this is a very popular uh sub-genre within summer horror movies because if you even think back to it chapter one, you had a lot of that. You had a bunch of kids banding together over the summer to help solve a mystery and fight a clown.

Sean 6:36

100%. Yeah. I mean, we love a good coming of age horror movie or a good coming of age any movie, right? With like these kids that are, you know, going through a little bit too much in their young age and they come out different. I would say even the Lost Boys might be a good one, you know, if you really think about it. It's a classic, but it's a good one. I think you know it's uh it's one of those where you have like the it all of it's there for the summer. You got the beachy kind of boardwalks, the beach concerts, you've got arcades everywhere, you got the vampires mixed in there, and these kids, you know, they have to they have to grow up a little bit and they have to take out some vamps.

Kris 7:17

You know, I actually had the Lost Boys on my list for another category within summer horror movies, but that is actually such a perfect place to put it because I completely neglected the dynamic of the older brother, younger brother, and just like this pure loss of innocence.

Sean 7:33

Yeah, it's a good one for sure.

Kris 7:35

I think another one that you could look at is Summer of 84. Summer of 84 is another like it chapter one adjacent movie where it's again a young group of kids set in the 80s in the summer, and they're trying to solve a mystery, except for instead of a demonic clown, they're trying to solve a true crime mystery about a serial killer. Okay, maybe impacting and lurking in their neighborhood.

Sean 8:01

I like that. Okay. I yeah, I don't know if I've seen that one. I'll have to double check and maybe revisit that one this summer, right now, for my summarine watch list. Uh, I think is is this uh a good coming of age kind of summer nights horror movie? Is it even horror is more sci-fi, but I for some reason I wanted to say Super 8.

Kris 8:21

I have never seen Super Eight, so I'm not familiar, but I mean I believe you if you say it.

Sean 8:26

Yeah, I'm just like it's maybe one of those that's not quite horror enough. Maybe it's a little bit more sci-fi-ish, but it definitely is one of those things where when you think of that type of vibe, those that summer nights type of vibe, it's this kind of love letter to kids having this freedom. They have they're riding their bikes, they have late nights out, no parents around. They're all everything goes horribly wrong. The the it just is just a a wild time for sure.

Kris 8:53

Okay, well, I'm gonna add that to my own list to explore. One other one that I'm actually considering now, and this goes, I think, to the wholesome like family values of maybe Summerween. Adams Family Values.

Sean 9:09

Okay.

Kris 9:10

Obviously, when you think of this movie, you think of Wednesday Adams, and you think of it like in a Thanksgiving dinner situation, but it actually is a summer camp, so it actually does take place in like a summer kind of arena.

Sean 9:23

I could see that. I could see that definitely. I didn't think of that at first, but I can definitely see where you're going with that.

Kris 9:29

Looking at obviously that movie taking place at a summer camp, you have then the entire category of just summer camp slashers or bad shit that happens at summer camps.

Sean 9:40

Yeah, there is a ton of there's a ton of good ones for slashers at any kind of camp or lake or whatever. And you know, there's obviously we can talk about the obvious ones, but I mean one that we just got not that long ago that I feel like wasn't the most popular was in a violent nature.

Kris 10:01

Wow. Uh, when you said that we got not that long ago, I thought that you're gonna go with hell of a summer because I thought that was a not that popular, but a great example of like Finn Wolf Hart and a directorial aspect. In a violent nature, yeah, you're right. It takes place at a camp. Well, it takes place in the woods, you know, it takes place in the wilderness, but it does have very summer camp energy, it has that kind of feeling to it. And god, I did not like that movie, but we are getting a sequel, so I guess I gotta deal with it.

Sean 10:36

We're getting a sequel. You gotta love it.

Kris 10:39

Hell of a summer, I think, is worthy of the cause. In addition to that, I would go with the burning. Sean, I'm sure you've seen the burning a million times. You have crop.

Sean 10:47

Oh, the yeah, no, for sure. The burning is definitely it's a perfect kind of camp summer horror summer ween setup. The camp in that one feels it feels like it's lived in. It's the counselors, like there, I don't know. Something about the counselors in that one that you know it kind of feels realistic in a way, like they're actually kind of like vibing. I think the setting really matters. So the burning is definitely something that I think stands out for sure.

Kris 11:15

Yeah, yeah. The burning is a solid one, and obviously, we've gotten a couple picks now into the slashers at wakes or camps, and we haven't talked about Friday the 13th, folks. We don't worry, we're gonna have a whole thing about Friday the 13th in October, of course, with the Crystal Lake series that's coming out. But in addition to that, we're going to have a summer camp slashers ranked episode. So we're gonna be talking a lot about Friday the 13th, I assure you.

Sean 11:45

Yeah, I mean, it is it is the obvious one, you know. When we're talking about slashers at lakes and camps, that's a hundred percent the first thing that's gonna come to everybody's mind. So a hundred percent it's a shout out to that. We're just trying to think of some maybe some other ones that you might want to add to your list. I'm trying to think of like another good camp movie or kind of lake movie. And for me, I feel like technically piranha.

Kris 12:14

There is a camp scene, yeah.

Sean 12:16

It's all there's a whole camp scene for piranha, and I I kind of like immediately was like wanting to put it in a different category, you know, but I think it also fits really well into this vibe, yeah, yeah.

Kris 12:27

No, I 100% agree with that. I'm remembering now that you have this whole tense moment of these piranhas around a bunch of kids, and then it has to be the rest of the oh my god, I can't believe I forgot that.

Sean 12:40

It's a good one, it's a good one.

Kris 12:41

Yeah, oh, speaking of kids in danger, Fear Street Part 2, 1978.

Sean 12:47

Oh yeah.

Kris 12:49

Holy shit. You have the burlap sack killer, the camp nightwing slasher, and kids get riggedy wrecked in that movie. I think, hmm, do I still feel this way actually? I think the Fear Street trilogy overall is super strong, and I'm very emotionally invested in the conclusion of the story that we get in the third film 1666, or as great as the first one is, the second installment that takes place in 1978 might be the best in that franchise.

Sean 13:23

It's a good, it's definitely I'm with you. It's a it's one of the best ones for sure. I love it. I think also we have to in this category, you can't move on when you think of slashers at any kind of lake. I'm thinking Lake Placid 1999. It's it's a lake, it is the jaws of the lake.

Kris 13:44

Wow, wow, I haven't thought about Lake Placid in years, Sean.

Sean 13:50

You gotta throw it in there.

Kris 13:51

Doesn't Lake Placid also sh star Betty White?

Sean 13:54

I think she is in that, yeah.

Kris 13:57

Son of a bitch, here I was thinking you were gonna nominate Sleepaway Camp, and you give me out of left field the creature feature Lake Placid.

Sean 14:07

Gotta do it. You gotta do it.

Kris 14:09

You do actually set my mind on the different course of obviously the parts of summer that are very wet. You think about the beach, you think about the ocean. Apparently, you think about Lake Placid. I cannot believe that I didn't once consider the ramifications of piranha and Lake Placid. I am embarrassed. I my list for the for beach horror is 100% sharks.

Sean 14:35

Yeah, for sure. Beach horror and sharks is like that's the thing. When you think of, I mean, there are there's a couple, I guess there's a couple other things that we can talk about for sure, but when you think of that, you immediately think of all the different shark movies that you can throw at us in the summer.

Kris 14:51

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I mean, obviously, we're gonna be celebrating Shark Week here at Hackerslash with not only a watch party, but a full episode review of Deep Blue Sea. When was the last time you saw that, Sean?

Sean 15:02

Oh man, Deep Blue Sea, it's been a while for sure. But that's a good one. It's a good one for sure. I think uh man, holy smokes. I actually haven't seen Deep Blue Sea in quite some time, but it's a good one. It's it's another another one. Um would be is this an ocean? Oh, this is just another. I'm thinking of like off-the-wall stuff now as we start bringing these up, but now I'm thinking of um oh, it's kind of technically a lake again. Oh no, it's a lake again. I was thinking of that movie where they go into the the house that's like under the water, but that's a lake, it's the deep house. Basically, there's uh uh a house that was submerged at some point somehow, and it's under a lake, and they go diving into this house, and it's a haunted house under the water. It's a weird it's a weird experience, it's very different for sure.

Kris 15:53

My guy, that sounds about as fucking weird as that terrible shark movie I saw, Ghost Shark. That's right. Oh my god, it's a ghost. That's a shark.

Sean 16:03

It's a ghost that's a shark. I mean, they listen, if there's ghosts out there, why wouldn't there be a ghost shark?

Kris 16:08

Because there doesn't need to be, Sean, because there doesn't need to be a ghost shark. I mean, while you're researching your deep house, uh, I want to give a shout out to Dangerous Animals that came out last year and was such a great cinematic experience. I've really felt like shark movies were back on the map with that one.

Sean 16:28

That was so good. I actually that was one that was so good that I was I was pretty set on buying, and now you've remembered like you've reminded me that I actually have to go purchase this movie. I really enjoyed that movie quite a bit. The acting in that movie is unhinged for sure. The there's a whole the whole scene at the end is wild as hell. Oh my gosh, great shark movie.

Kris 16:49

And again, Shark Week, yes, but also summer, also warm weather, also beachgoing weather. And this is just such a great example of the legacy that was even set by Jaws in 1975, right? So that movie changes the way that Americans interact with the beach and just behave at the beach. So to draw a straight line from 1975 to now 2020. Well, actually 2025 when that movie came out. Absolutely incredible stuff. I am so glad that the sharks continue to persist.

Sean 17:22

Sharks will always be, I think, uh a point of interest for sure. I think people are naturally drawn to sharks, if not afraid of sharks. There's something about them. They are kind of cool to watch. People watch just shark week on whatever Discovery Channel or Animal Planet or whatever the hell they they do shark week, and you just watch a whole bunch of stuff of sharks swimming around and eating stuff and all kinds of crazy stuff. So people naturally are just drawn to sharks. So if you're gonna make a horror movie, might as well make a shark one in the summer. You got shark nato, you gotta throw it out there. So the deep house, it does take place during a summer vacation trip, so we're safe there. It also was released in the summer, so I think that's a double whammy uh right there. It takes place in rural France, and it is hey, listen, if you're if you're in the summer, you're trying to build a summer ween list, and you want a wet haunted house story, this is your film.

Kris 18:21

Damn. I can't believe you try to go for the extra credit of not only does it take place in summer, but it was released in summer. I'm sure we can rack up the points of all these seasonal picks.

Sean 18:30

I'm just saying it's there, it's here.

Kris 18:33

Yeah, 47 meters down. Famed Mandy Moore film, 47 meters down.

Sean 18:39

Yeah, we love actually, you know what? I love that one. We love 47 meters down.

Kris 18:45

That movie was such a mind fuck. I can't believe that I didn't see that coming at the end. I was like, oh wow, look at this. I'm actually thoroughly surprised and entertained and also heartbroken.

Sean 18:56

Absolutely wild. There's all the all these movies that take place like way, way far down. What there was uh there's an old, like there's a recent one I'm trying to remember, but there was also an older one from the 80s called Leviathan, and that one uh was like this classic blend of deep sea isolation and body horror as this like underwater mining crew encounters these mutations underwater. That's kind of a fun one, you know.

Kris 19:26

Okay, yeah, it's giving the descent but wet and underwatered instead of underground.

Sean 19:32

Yeah, a hundred percent. It's it's kind of I mean, it's kind of like that. I can see, I can see where you're going with that. Yeah, mutations, underground, underwater. There's just I guess you still get the same kind of claustrophobic vibe, whether you're in like a cave you can't escape from, or you're just like way below the sea and you can't get in it, you can't escape. Yeah, totally.

Kris 19:52

Okay, mutated creatures. I would be remiss if I didn't remind you of a bullshit franchise, which is two-headed shark, three-headed shark, five-headed shark. It just goes on and on and on. I'm pretty sure you can find all of them on Tubi. They're fucking insane, Sean. But really great if you want to have a fever dream of just shark shit in the middle of summer.

Sean 20:16

There's a lot of good ocean horror, I guess, and more than meets the eye than just Jaws now that I'm really diving into this for sure.

Kris 20:25

So we've talked about a few things so far. One, the coming of age of it all, summer nights, the innocence lost. We've talked about that. We've talked about obviously summer camps and lakes. Now we've talked about creature features that are wet and wild. But another fun aspect of summer, which I absolutely love and did a lot of as a kid, is the good old road trip.

Sean 20:48

I mean, you gotta love road trips. There's there's definitely a vibe to a road trip, and no one's doing road trips in the middle of winter, so you know this is definitely the right kind of vibe for a summer ween horror movie. You've got like the it feel you got the whole feels of it because you're feeling the heat, you're feeling like you're going through these back roads, there's some kind of like dirty, gritty stickiness to the whole experience, you know what I mean? So it's there. I mean, look at Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's definitely one of the it is definitely one of the ones that gives you those feels 100% of the time.

Kris 21:30

I thought you were either gonna go Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Honeydew.

Sean 21:34

Ooh, honeydew. Oh my gosh, you had to bring that up for sure. That's another one that's definitely got that vibe.

Kris 21:42

I just fucking remembered one. Oh my gosh, road trip, and a little bit of vacation gone wrong, but mostly road trip, house of wax.

Sean 21:52

House of Wax is a great one. It's any of these, it's any of these vibes that are just on these back roads, you're just running into some. Wild shit, you just don't know. That's kind of also a fear, right? Like, even now, you can go on a trip, get turned around. Your your navigation tells you, oh, we gotta reroute you. And the next thing you know, you're driving up a dirt road, and you don't know where you are, and you got no service, and anything can happen at that point.

Kris 22:21

Country roads, take me home to the place with the bones. Texas chance uh I totally get it. Uh, wrong turn is another really good one for this.

Sean 22:34

Wrong turn's a great one for this for sure. It's it's awesome.

Kris 22:39

Alliance of douche. Be still my beating heart.

Sean 22:43

Oh, there's there's actually a lot to choose from in this category. Um, Jeepers Creepers is a great one. You have to throw that on going through the cornfields, the back roads. Again, no cell service. It's it's just peak wrong turn energy or just in the wrong place. Um, and you gotta love it. You get the classic tune on the radio, Jeepers Creepers. Where'd you get those peepers?

Kris 23:10

What a problematic movie because of the legacy surrounding it. But I think we can all acknowledge that before we knew any better, and when that movie first came out, damn, that had us all in a choke hold.

Sean 23:21

It did for sure.

Kris 23:23

We will not be reviewing it or covering it on the podcast for many reasons, but I think this is a moment to acknowledge that fuck that little song.

Sean 23:33

That song, I was singing that song for a while after that movie came out. It's it was just a thing, man. It was a thing when that came out. But one of my favorites, The Hills Have Eyes, and I'm talking the original and the remake.

Kris 23:47

A hard, hard, hard, hard movie to watch. I want you to know, Sean, that I watched the remake before I watched the original.

Sean 23:57

Yeah.

Kris 23:58

And the assault scene that happens in the RV felt so visceral and disgusting to me that I, for a very, very, very long time refused to watch the original. And I only did it when it came out for the podcast.

Sean 24:13

Dang. Dang. I mean, I get it. It's some of these horror movies are hard to are just hard to watch. Some of these scenes you think of like um even like the last house on the left, you know. It's it's a those are some hard things to witness, you know. These assault scenes are hard, but they're horrific and it's part of the genre.

Kris 24:34

It it is. I think that if you are a certain kind of person who can stomach that, go for it. Those are some options for you. I think if you want something a little lighter and you want something that is weird, fucking campy slasher that's older, and you just want to like throw something on and not really think about it very much. You have Tourist Trap. And Tourist Trap is one that was introduced to us by one of our dear listeners and patrons who nominated this. This is a movie that she used to watch a lot with her mom. And I actually have a figure, I think, somewhere down beneath my desk right now. It is a figure of the antagonist from Tourist Trap. Weird fucking voice, weird fucking like almost house of wax-esque mask. It's fucking and it has such a great soundtrack that I now own it on vinyl. So if you don't want to have your stomach churned, a by the real life horror behind Jeepers Creepers, or B, the on-screen horrors of a lot of these other movies that we're talking about, tourist Trap, pretty good. I I don't recall anything super problematic about that one, not super problematic.

Sean 25:43

Before we move on from road trip horror, I do have to say, technically, technically, if we're talking about going on a road trip, the devil's rejects has gotta be in there.

Kris 25:54

It's gotta be damn it, Sean.

Sean 25:57

You gotta you gotta throw it in there. They're on a road trip.

Kris 26:00

Are you wrong? You're not wrong, but you know what? If you're gonna fucking go sideways with Devil's Rejects, let me go extra sideways with a movie that I don't think is actually a horror movie, but has always affected me like a horror movie, and that is the Paul Walker film, Joyride.

Sean 26:18

Have you seen it? Oh, yeah, okay.

Kris 26:21

It feels more like thriller, psychological thriller, and then a little bit of action in there. It's definitely I for me, I think it's just the the chart, the truck driver's voice in particular. I find very, very scary. I can't imagine hearing that. Maybe it's just my anxiety because I don't answer my phone. You know what I mean? Like maybe it's just those kind of communications, those are the things that scare me most. Yeah, absolutely fuck that to you, sir. Along the lines of road trips, right? Yeah, even beyond just the road trip out of it all, you have the other slice of summer ween and summer horror, which is vacation gone wrong. So a little bit different. Maybe you're going by plane, train, automobile, but you go somewhere and it's not what you fucking expect. I think a big one that a lot of people probably think of immediately when you think of summer is midsomar.

Sean 27:15

For sure. Definitely a vacation gone rock, midsomar. I mean, that's that whole movie is a trip. It is a horrific experience to watch, let alone think of being involved in something like that for sure.

Kris 27:30

Mm-hmm. Yeah, uh, going back to the descent.

Sean 27:33

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you can definitely do that. I think, man, I was just thinking uh infinity pool, technically.

Kris 27:40

Ugh, yuck. Yeah.

Sean 27:42

It's the it's the luxury vacation that becomes moral decay.

Kris 27:47

Yeah, hey, if you in this economy can relate to the exorbitant wealth in infinity pool, good on you, I guess. But for the rest of us, we have tourist trap.

Sean 27:58

We do have tourist trap for sure. What's that one that came out a few years ago? Old? That's where they like go on this vacation and they relax on this beach, but they discover that the the beach is actually rapidly aging them. It's an interesting, weird concept, but you know, you think of vacations gone wrong, that's definitely one of them.

Kris 28:19

Maybe we need to do a 31 Days of Summerween where we just have like one day a week is a beach day, and you had to find all these beach horror movies.

Sean 28:29

I'm here for it for sure.

Kris 28:31

Yeah. In less beachy vibes, let's take the vibes to the woods for vacation. And this is a squint just right, and you'll see it. Tuckerendale versus evil.

Sean 28:42

Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah, that's a good one for the list, I think, for any list. It's just a it's a it's dare I say a fun time. Definitely good. And if we're going to the woods, I mean you have to go classic Evil Dead. If you're gonna have a summer ween movie about a vacation going into the woods, you might as well go for the classic Evil Dead.

Kris 29:02

Yeah, I was wondering how long it was gonna take you to get there, Sean. And really, you could technically even go Evil Dead Rise if you wanted, because it starts out at a lake.

Sean 29:12

Yeah, it does start out at a lake. You can go Evil Dead Rise, you can do any of the you know, Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, the remake in 2013, Evil Dead Rise, they all work. You can get a lot of Evil Deads in.

Kris 29:25

Yeah, you know, there's another one that I want to throw out there, which is a Jordan Peel. Us.

Sean 29:33

That's true.

Kris 29:34

That family goes on vacation, yeah, rents a house, and are terrorized by the tethered 100%.

Sean 29:42

And us also has the like carnival scene, right? And you know, what's what's what screams like a good summer vibe than uh you know, a carnival in some other town, you know, or whatever, maybe your own town. I don't know. Those those county fairs or some shit. Fried butter.

Kris 30:01

Not the fried butter, Sean.

Sean 30:03

Fried butter, fried Oreos, fried everything. Step right up, folks. Fry your shit.

Kris 30:07

I think my problem is the only time I ever go to those things is in the fall when they're like local haunts.

Sean 30:12

Yeah.

Kris 30:12

So I don't think about them as a summer activity.

Sean 30:15

Although I should so hot because if we go to anything out here, it's gonna be hot as hell. You're gonna stand outside in 90 plus degree weather in full humidity and try to eat some fried shit. You're gonna fucking pass out.

Kris 30:29

Big, big yuck. No, thank you. The last one I want to throw out here is actually a quick shout-out because this month we have coming up a mystery meat theater. If you're not aware of mystery meat theater, one of our dear patrons, his Discord handle is Meat, and he every month runs a double feature that's a mystery movie until you get closer to it. This month he's he's actually doing Wolf Creek 2.

Sean 30:55

Oh, okay.

Kris 30:57

I want to throw out the original Wolf Creek, which we did an episode on way back in the day. This was well before your time, Sean. And that is just not not one of my favorite movies. It's it's it's it's a lot.

Sean 31:09

Wolf Creek's the one in like Australia, right?

Kris 31:12

Mm-hmm.

Sean 31:13

Yeah, Wolf Creek. I mean, yeah, you could put that one on vacation gone wrong. You can put it even in the road trip type horror, like it it can fit in either category, but it's definitely deserves its place for sure. You know, you you were saying you gotta throw one more in there, but we didn't even we didn't even really stab too much at Cabin in the Woods, which I think is like one of the one of the better ones. Like for if you're looking for kind of a fun time that's kind of self-aware, playing poking fun at itself while just having a good time with some serious undertones in there, too. It's a little, you know, I don't know. It's uh it's it's a fun one. There's some stoner, classic stoner stuff in there. There's you know, the classic tropes are in there, you got some weird reveals at the end, but it's all in a a vacation to a cabin in the woods.

Kris 32:01

Yeah, I mean, listen, I was leaving it for you, bud, because you pick you pick any horror movie that takes place in the cabin, you got a good summer ween movie. I'm even thinking about knock at the cabin. Now your model may vary on whether or not you enjoyed that movie. I personally liked it, but it it's a lot. There's a lot of good cabin options out there. Now, as we transition into wrapping up, just this last category. You think about either movies that are summer adjacent or just are movies that are good to rewatch in the heat. I left this one out of the coming of age, although it is really a turn, a turn into adulthood and a coming of age film, also a deal with the fucking consequences of your action film. But we cannot wrap up a a draft list without talking about I know what you did last summer.

Sean 32:52

Ah, it's so true for sure. Um I know what you did last summer definitely could have been a coming of age and is a coming of age story. Um, but it definitely is just one of the it is one of those summer vibe horror movies, the teen slashers that you gotta love for sure. Uh another another one that you can't leave the you know the summer vibes without watching, and that's like the children of the corn, you know, because what speaks uh to summer like good old corn on the cob. You know, a lot of things speak to summer without being that little corn on the cob, grilling some corn, you know, and then having the children of the corn, also brought to you by the cobgler, brought to you by the cobgler. You drive across this country, you're gonna see a lot of fucking corn, let me tell you that much. So we love our corn here in America.

Kris 33:45

Apparently, this is the category where I would have had the lost boys because again, not like I can see it. It never felt explicitly summer to me, but damn, it it is it is there, and I I completely see it. Another that I'll go with is Rosemary's baby.

Sean 34:01

Oh, interesting.

Kris 34:02

She's pregnant, obviously, for fucking nine months, but you do see a swell-through hot New York summer in there. And if you want something that I think is exorcist adjacent, I think the exorcist belongs firmly in the fall. Yeah for some reason. I can't I can't make sense of that in my brain. But Rosemary's baby, I think, is one that you can sub in there, especially because the birth of the baby takes place during the summer.

Sean 34:27

Yeah. I okay, I could see you squeezing it in there for sure. I think along those lines, you know, we can't we can't necessarily leave out something like from dusk till dawn because that's technically it could be in the road trip section, but it's definitely it feels like it's got that vibe. It's hot, it's in the desert, it's dry, and and just there's you know, vampires, and it's I think it's pure summer ween energy for sure.

Kris 34:54

Is there hot? Is there sweat?

Sean 34:57

There's all of those things.

Kris 34:58

You know, I was even just thinking about for a moment how could I forget that by the same logic of Rosemary's baby, the omen, because Damien is born with a mark of the beast.

Sean 35:12

Oh, yeah, that's true.

Kris 35:13

Yeah, so if you want to get a little satanic in your panic, then maybe you go that kind of angle for like the June-July months.

Sean 35:19

There you go. There you go. So you can throw some extras in there if you're looking to, you know, finish the last couple slots of your your uh watch list or whatever. You got some extra bonus movies in there for you.

Kris 35:31

Absolutely. Now, Sean, obviously, we've talked about a few picks back and forth in categories that I think are gonna be pretty prominent for folks who are looking to just orient themselves in scary movie marathons. But Summerween is obviously a more a more recent addition in the landscape of okay, how do you celebrate Halloween overall?

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Yeah.

Kris 35:52

But as I mentioned, there have been, I mean, obviously, you and I we both watch horror movies all year round, but obviously now we have the challenge or the opportunity to celebrate Halloween all year round, and not just through buying spooky shit every once in a while or doing your spirit Halloween hauls early, but we have an excuse now to do some really cool shit this summer ween.

Sean 36:14

That's true. I mean, it it is an excuse. I mean, but if you're if I mean technically, if you're anything like me, you know, and you know, you grew up listening to things like ministry, every day is Halloween. So you just kind of uh you just kind of live in that vibe. But no, I get you, I get you. It's more this becoming this kind of like more of a you know, I hate to say mainstream, but it is kind of more of a mainstream thing right now where we are, you know, getting the vibe of Summer Ween. People are advertising things like Summerween. It's almost like you know, you have Hallmark doing Christmas in July. Uh so now Halloween is taking its rightful place in the summer as well.

Kris 36:54

Absolutely. And you know, hey, once again, you could technically just watch Nightmare before Christmas and just stretch all the way year through. Fuck it, there are no rules anymore.

Sean 37:05

That's true. You could do whatever you want, really. Uh that's the beauty of just uh doing whatever the hell you want, I guess. But yeah, I mean there's there's some fun stuff. I think, you know, outside of um outside of building just a watch list of movies to to watch and to watch through the summer, however long you want to stretch that. Uh you could also kind of build a summer ween calendar of sorts. So you can build yourself like events that you want to go do that are kind of adjacent to getting that kind of spooky vibe in the middle of the summer.

Kris 37:39

Yeah, you could, for example, go take a picnic in a cemetery.

Sean 37:43

There you go. You could take a picnic in a cemetery. We could go drive down to the keys and see Robert the doll, you know.

Kris 37:49

Sean. Sean, don't fuck with me. I have a week off next week.

Sean 37:53

Anything can happen. Anything can happen, you know.

Kris 37:55

Have time off, we'll travel either to Robert the Doll or St. Augustine. We're gonna do some spooky shit this summer, we need.

Sean 38:01

There you go, there you go. A hundred percent.

Kris 38:03

But some things that I think you could consider, right? So, one, obviously the the watch list, yes, two, the calendar of events where you like pick out like spooky little adventures to go on. But three, there's also the community and the social angle, right? Everybody does a barbecue in the summer. Well, not everybody. I don't know enough people to fill up a barbecue, but people do barbecues, people, some people somewhere do barbecues. You could have a Halloween-themed barbecue in summer.

Sean 38:32

That would be kind of fun, actually.

Kris 38:34

Make your ghosts out of floral sheets instead of white sheets and cut little jack-o' lantern faces into the cheese on the cheeseburger, do mummy dogs instead of hot dogs.

Sean 38:44

Hey, that's kind of fun. I like that. You could do that. I mean, you even said at the opening to the episode, which I thought uh I don't know why I didn't think of it, but to have uh, you know, jack-o' lanterns out of melons, you know, you could literally just carve yourself a watermelon jack o' melon.

Kris 39:01

Yeah, I I I should tell you right now, I don't like watermelon. Well, you don't have to eat the watermelon, but well, yeah, I am gonna buy a watermelon for the first time in my life, and I'm actually gonna try to carve a jack o' melon, and I might stream it for patrons. I don't know, we'll see. I I am not confident enough in my carving skills to just put it on blast for everybody, uh, but it will be there. It will be a vulnerable space in which I am live streaming, carving a jack o' melon, and it may be a disaster, but we'll we'll do this together, people.

Sean 39:33

It sounds like a good time for sure.

Kris 39:35

It does make me wish I could just have like a little summer ween pool party, though. Like, you know those pool floats that you see that are shaped like coffins? That's that's the move. This is the time for it.

Sean 39:45

There you go. You can, yeah, you can do and you also could do maybe instead, you could have like a nighttime pool party. It's hot outside, you gotta maybe even if you're not in like a place where it's super, super hot, you can get a heated pool, put some like purple lights in the pool.

Kris 40:02

I feel so foolish for neglecting a pick, which is the strangest prey at night.

Sean 40:08

Oh, there you go. There it is. There it is.

Kris 40:18

Yeah, but another angle that you have, another thing that you can do is just fucking send it, go full Halloween, and you can take uh actually maybe all the fret family friendly Halloween movies that maybe don't always have the time for in the Halloween season, spike that shit up earlier. I'm actually seriously considering doing that for myself this year. Like I want to find all those like classic Halloween cartoon films, and thinking about like the story, like the legend of Sleepy Hollow, Nicobod Crane. I want to watch all of those and like Hocus Pocus, Halloween Town, etc., as my summer ween, and then say spooky season for like the more intense, horrific shit.

Sean 40:59

Okay, I could see that. I could see doing some of them. I don't know if I could do hocus pocus in the summer, but I could probably throw some other ones in there, like it like Halloween Town and things like that. I can definitely see. I think it's not a bad idea for sure. Why not? Give it a try. Give it a shot, see what happens.

Kris 41:17

The good news for all of you though is that we actually have a lot of things happening at Camp Hackerslash, which is our Discord server. And we have Nathan's Big Summer Blowout, which is a watch party every day for the first week of July. Uh, so he's in that right now. Uh Twilight just played tonight. We have a lot of good shit coming up, and it's like a lot of like fan favors and listener requests. And then we're gonna have more watch parties throughout the month. We also have mystery meet double theater happening later this month. We're gonna bake in a trivia night during the summarine season, and there's even gonna be think about your classic camp activities, there's gonna be a color wars. So we'll have a red team and a blue team, and we'll get some points going for attendance and for participation in community events, and uh there's gonna be a lot of a lot of war here.

Sean 42:07

That sounds fun. War.

Kris 42:09

Yeah, why not? And I think you know, the motto here would be eat shit and live.

Sean 42:15

Nice, nice.

Kris 42:17

So obviously, it mentioned that we have a ton coming up this summer ween. So we have a few key episodes. One Evil Dead Burn is coming up soon. You're gonna have our deep blue sea watch party and review. We have ice cream man that's coming out in the beginning of August. So again, the sweltering heat of summer and ice cream man. I can't fucking wait for that. But in addition to that, we're gonna have some bonus programming where we have the best summer horror movies, period. We're gonna do summer camp slashers ranked. So we're gonna get really deep in here. And then, of course, we want your perspective and your input. So you can send us any fan mail through the link in our episode description, send it via Instagram, uh, send it via text, send it in Discord, email, literally any way that you can. Uh I want to hear so many different perspectives from you. And then we're gonna play all of those in our Summerween bonfire episode. Uh it's gonna be all about community submissions.

Sean 43:16

Uh that's awesome. Sounds fun. Uh little community summer ween festivities.

Kris 43:22

Uh yeah, and I mean, if you think about it, summer is also the time for creepy stories and scary stories around the campfire.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

Yeah.

Kris 43:30

Think of Are You Afraid of the Dark? So if you have any of those creepy stories that maybe either you've personally experienced or that you've heard of down through the grapevine, and you want to share, send those in as well. Because we're gonna be we're gonna be sharing some scary shit.

Sean 43:45

Love it.

Kris 43:46

Well, folks, that is our summer ween starter pack, and that's what we're doing, that's why it exists. Now you know how to celebrate it, or at least you have some options for how you can celebrate it, and you're welcome to share more about that in our Discord. But in the meantime, as I mentioned, we want to hear from you. So any summer horror traditions, your summer ween picks that you want to try this year, your first horror memory, how you even found the show, literally all of it. That's what the hackerslash hotline is for. Again, you can drop us a voicemail, hit us on Discord, find us wherever you find us, and the best stuff goes into that Summerween bonfire at the end of our Summerween block. So we want to hear your voice.

Sean 44:23

And if you want to, you know, find out a little bit more about us, you want to go further than what we're doing here with this episode, you can check us out in our subreddit, hackerslash pod. You can visit us at patreon.com slash hacker slash and support the show. This is how you can enjoy even more of the show, including some of the bonus content, early access, extended episodes of our movie reviews with B sides, movie nominations, and live shows.

SPEAKER_01 44:49

See you next time, folks. And remember, stay spooky and stay sweaty.

Sean 44:53

Happy summer week.