Dead Of Summer: Season One Review

After the nonsense that was "Pretty Little Liars" (let's face it, Cece being "A" was less than underwhelming) ABC Family retooled it's self to become "Freeform", a whole new network catering towards tweens & millennials and with it's new name comes new programming. Making there debuts on the new network are "Guilt" (which stars Billy Zane in a role that is shamefully beneath him, honestly the man is an amazing actor and should be doing better stuff) "Marvel's Cloak & Dagger" (which raises a ton of questions as to why not just go the Netflix route with those two) and finally "Dead Of Summer". Much like "Pretty Little Liars", I got interested in "Dead Of Summer" due to certain theater chains having a "First Look" segment before the previews where you get behind the scenes info on upcoming shows or the next season of shows.

So "Dead Of Summer", what's it about, well its about a camp of teens in the 1980s who arrive at the haunted Camp Stillwater. Going into this series, I have some reservations, I'm none too keen on period pieces that aren't set in old times, but I suppose its harder to write a horror movie in this digital age what with characters being able to call and tweet when paranormal stuff is going on, I mean can you imagine #GhostatCamp. Then again, I think its just a call for writers to step their game up and figure out new ways to introduce horror and make it believable for the digital age. So I can understand if that's the reason why "Dead Of Summer" takes place in the 80s. That being said, we have some heavy hitters in the cast, Elizabeth Mitchell who was in "L O S T" and "Revolution" and the daughter of the late Robin Williams, Zelda Williams and Tony Todd a.k.a "Candy Man".

Now immediately when you think Summer camp, 1980s, teenagers our thoughts immediately go to Jason and Camp Crystal Lake, but "Dead Of Summer" didn't promote it's self to be a slasher series, rather it promoted its self as having a deep and ancient mythology. Before ABC Family was Freeform, it tired to do deep and ancient mythology with the failure that was "Ravenswood". However, seeing as how it took place within the "Pretty Little Liars" universe, it wasn't well received and was shamefully hookie aside from a few segments. Anyway the reason I bring up Jason and The Friday The 13th Series is because those were movies and contained within a certain running time. Will the campers of Camp Stillwater still be at Camp in later Seasons? That's one of my primary concerns for this show, how can they make this series last logically. You'd have to think that each season would be a week in camp? Maybe? So I'm very curious to see how and where this series takes us and if it'll be something worthy of a weekly review. With all that said, let's get to the episodes proper and see what's what. Spoilers abound...