Wet Hot American Summer

Ah, who can ever forget the teen romp films of the 80?s? For those of us who grew up in that era, films ranging from ?Porkys? to ?Meatballs 3? took viewers on a rowdy tour of teen lust and debauchery as hormonal driven teens strove to get lucky. The fact that the films had little plot was of no interest to most viewers, as scores of scantily clad and nude young ladies kept male viewers attention, as did the off-color pranks portrayed by many of the male cast members.



In the modern era, times have changed and if one wants to partake in a teen sex romp, the video store and cable has replaced the cinemas as the place to find a multitude of titles in the teen sex-comedy genre. For every ?American Pie? that makes it to the theaters, there are at least 20 titles in the genre that are released, often to be an impulse rental or to keep insomniacs awake on late night cable.

Parodies are picking up steam in Hollywood as films such as ?Scary Movie?, and ?Not Another Teen Movie? took shots at such standard teen fare as horror films and teen movies. Writers Michael Showalter and David Wain, set their sites on camping movies and have given us ?Wet Hot American Summer?, a parody of a genre that starting with ?Meatballs? gave rise to a slew of camp films ranging from horror, to sex comedies.

Wet Hot stars Janine Garofolo as Beth, a supervisor at Camp Firewood during the last day of camp in 1981. As Beth struggles to get everything in order for the final days activities and the closing festivities, a number of fellow counselors have issues arise that throw gas on a growing fire. There is the love triangle between three counselors, a militant theatrical director, (Molly Shannon), a confused scientist (David Hyde Pierce) and a person who avoided girls all summer despite his friends best efforts to fix him up.


There is not much of a plot in the film and the jokes can be uneven. I found some of the laughs very good, where others were dull and did not work well. The film loses momentum towards the end and it soon dissolves into a mad scramble amongst the cast with little direction, as it seems that many scenes were improvised near the films conclusion. While not a classic film, there are some laughs and if you want a mindless distraction this may just be your rental. The DVD contains some great bonus footage and some good behind the scenes footage that adds to the overall experience.

2.5 stars out of 5

Gareth Von Kallenbach
gareth@nwlink.com