''Dead of Summer'' is an American supernatural horror television series created by

Adam Horowitz Adam Horowitz (born December 4, 1971) is an American screenwriter and producer. He is known for co-creating the ABC fairy tale drama series '' Once Upon a Time'' with his writing partner Edward Kitsis. Days after the show ended its seven-year ...

Edward Kitsis Edward Lawrence Kitsis (born February 4, 1971) is an American television writer and producer, best known for his work with his writing partner Adam Horowitz on the popular ABC drama series ''Lost'' and '' Once Upon a Time''. Early life and e ...

and

Ian Goldberg Ian Avrum Goldberg (born March 31, 1973) is a cryptographer and cypherpunk. He is best known for breaking Netscape's implementation of SSL (with David Wagner), and for his role as chief scientist of Radialpoint (formerly Zero Knowledge Syste ...

for Freeform. The series is set in the 1980s at Camp Stillwater, a Midwestern

summer camp A summer camp or sleepaway camp is a supervised program for children conducted during the summer months in some countries. Children and adolescents who attend summer camp are known as ''campers''. Summer school is usually a part of the academ ...

. In November 2015, Freeform gave a straight-to-series order. The series was conceived as an anthology, with each season conceived as a self-contained miniseries, following a different set of characters in similar settings. The series premiered on June 28, 2016 and concluded on August 30, 2016. ''Dead of Summer'' was produced by

ABC Signature ABC Signature is an American television production studio that is a subsidiary of Disney Television Studios, a division of Walt Disney Television, which is part of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Compan ...

and Kitsis/Horowitz. Adam Horowitz, Edward Kitsis and Ian Goldberg wrote and executive-produced the series.

Steve Pearlman Steve Pearlman is a Canadian television producer and director. He is well known for his work on the ABC series '' V'' and '' Once Upon a Time''. Career Pearlman began his career on the 2005 drama '' Related'', as an executive producer. He wo ...

served as executive producer. On November 8, 2016, Freeform cancelled the series after one season.

Premise

Set in 1989, school is out for the summer, and a sun-drenched season of firsts beckons the counselors at Camp Stillwater, a seemingly idyllic Midwestern summer camp, including first loves, first kisses—and first kills. Stillwater’s dark, ancient mythology awakens, and what was supposed to be a summer of fun soon turns into one of unforgettable scares and evil at every turn.

Cast and characters

Main

Elizabeth Mitchell Elizabeth Mitchell (born Elizabeth Joanna Robertson) is an American actress known for her lead role as Juliet Burke on the ABC drama mystery series ''Lost'' (2006–2010). Mitchell also had lead roles on the television series '' V'' (2009–2 ...

as Deb Carpenter *

Elizabeth Lail Elizabeth Dean Lail (born March 25, 1992) is an American actress. She played the recurring role of Anna in the fantasy adventure series '' Once Upon a Time'' (2014), and starred as Amy Hughes in the supernatural series '' Dead of Summer'' (2016) ...

as Amy Hughes * Amber Coney as Carolina "Cricket" Diaz *

Alberto Frezza Alberto Frezza (; born May 23, 1989) is an Italian-American actor and director. Early life and education Alberto Frezza was born in Milan, Italy, and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. At 15, he returned to Italy to attend high school. He gra ...

as Deputy Garrett "Townie" Sykes * Eli Goree as Joel Goodson * Mark Indelicato as Blair Ramos * Ronen Rubinstein as Alex Powell (born: Alexi Fayvinov) *

Paulina Singer Paulina Singer (born September 5, 1991) is an American actress, known for her roles as Grace Bledsoe on We TV's horror drama series '' South of Hell'' and Jessie Tyler on Freeform's teen drama series '' Dead of Summer''. Early life Singer was ...

as Jessica "Jessie/Braces" Tyler *

Zelda Williams Zelda Rae Williams (born July 31, 1989) is an American actress, director, producer, and writer. She is the daughter of actor and comedian Robin Williams and film producer and philanthropist Marsha Garces Williams. As a voice actress, she is bes ...

as Drew Reeves (born: Andrea Dalton)

Recurring

* Charles Mesure as Sheriff Boyd Heelan / The Teacher *

Tony Todd Tony Todd (born December 4, 1954) is an American actor who made his debut as Sgt. Warren in the film ''Platoon'' (1986), and portrayed Kurn in the television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (1990–1991) and '' Star Trek: Deep Space N ...

as Holyoke, the Tall Man *

Andrew J. West Andrew James West (born November 22, 1983) is an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Fisher in the ABC Family comedy drama ''Greek'', and as Gareth in the AMC horror drama '' The Walking Dead''. He appeared as a guest star in t ...

as Damon Crowley * Donnie Cochrane as Parker *

Zachary Gordon Zachary Adam Gordon (born February 15, 1998) is an American actor. He rose to prominence by playing Greg Heffley in the first three films of the '' Diary of a Wimpy Kid'' film series. He then went on to play Tate Wilson in '' Good Trouble'' and ...

as Jason "Blotter" Cohen * Janet Kidder as Mrs. Sykes

Guest

Dylan Neal Dylan Jeremy Neal (born October 8, 1969"Catching up with....Dylan Neal". ''Soap Opera Digest''. July 22, 2013. p. 73.) is a Canadian/American actor. He holds dual citizenship in Canada and the United States. He is known for his portrayal of the ...

as Keith Jones * Alex Fernandez as Hector Diaz *

Sharon Leal Sharon Ann Leal is an American actress and singer. She is known for her roles in movies such as ''Dreamgirls'', '' This Christmas'', '' Why Did I Get Married?'', ''Why Did I Get Married Too?'' and her roles on the television shows '' Legacy'', '' ...

as Renee Tyler *

Dan Payne Daniel Payne (born August 4, 1972) is a Canadian actor best known for playing the role of John in the television series '' Alice, I Think''. Career In his early 20s, Payne was a professional volleyball player. After his retirement, he was convin ...

as Jack Sykes *

Taylor Russell Taylor Russell McKenzie (born July 18, 1994) is a Canadian actress. She has starred in the Netflix science fiction series ''Lost in Space'' (2018–2021). In film, she has starred in the critically acclaimed drama ''Waves'' (2019), for which she ...

as Laura

Episodes

Production

Development

''Dead of Summer'' was ordered to series on November 18, 2015, along with an announcement that ABC Family would be transforming into Freeform in January 2016. The show is a reunion for ''

Once Upon a Time "Once upon a time" is a stock phrase used to introduce a narrative of past events, typically in fairy tales and folk tales. It has been used in some form since at least 1380 (according to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'') in storytelling in t ...

'' creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and one-time-writer Ian B. Goldberg. In February 2016 it was reported that ''

Lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography *Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland * Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...

'' and ''Once Upon a Time'' stars

and

would headline the show, initiating another reunion between writers and cast. In April 2016, Freeform announced that the series would premiere on June 28, 2016. On November 8, 2016, Freeform cancelled the series after one season. The series would have set its second season in 1970, with a third season to be set in the early 2000s.

Filming

The series began

principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...

on March 21, 2016 in

Vancouver, British Columbia Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. The ...

. Horowitz directed the pilot episode, only his second episode of television as director, the first being the thirteenth episode of ''Once Upon a Time''s fourth season, "

Unforgiven ''Unforgiven'' is a 1992 American Revisionist Western film starring, directed, and produced by Clint Eastwood, and written by David Webb Peoples. The film tells the story of William Munny, an aging outlaw and killer who takes on one more job, ...

Reception

''Dead of Summer'' has initially received mixed reviews from television critics. The

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported a 63% approval rating, with an average rating of 6.05 out of 10, based on 16 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "''Dead of Summer'' sets a spooky stage for a silly period creepfest, but its lack of actual scares adds up to an altogether underwhelming experience." Molly Freeman of ScreenRant gave the series premiere a positive review stating, "While the premise of ''Dead of Summer'' sounds familiar to any horror movie fan, the show benefits from not being directly tied to an existing horror franchise since it won't suffer for being compared to movies beloved by generations." Sonia Saraiya of ''Variety'' also wrote a positive review: "''Dead of Summer'' makes for a schlocky hour that never quite gets boring. At the very least, while escaping the dog days of summer inside with the air-conditioning, there's plenty of fun to be had in laughing at how bad it is." Alex McGown of

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

gave the first episode a C rating, stating "Its story is so clunky, and characters so wafer-thin, it all but evaporates into a haze of trite jump-scare beats and hoary teen tropes." Dan Fienberg of

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly larg ...

gave a more negative review: "''Dead of Summer'' is just run-of-the-mill unintentionally bad -- a mishmash of genres and structures and stock characters that maybe aspires to something original and falls flat." As the series continued, reviews became more positive. Paul Dailly of TV Fanatic gave a perfect score of 5.0/5.0 to the fifth episode saying, "'How to Stay Alive in the Woods' was a stellar episode of the freshman drama. We got so many reveals and the pace was brisk. Fingers crossed the rest of the season plays out in this manner."

References

External links

* * {{Freeform 2016 American television series debuts 2016 American television series endings Freeform (TV channel) original programming 2010s American horror television series 2010s American LGBT-related drama television series 2010s American supernatural television series 2010s American teen drama television series English-language television shows Television series set in the 1980s Television series by ABC Signature Studios Television series about summer camps Television series set in 1989 Television shows set in Wisconsin