Critics might have been sniffy back in 2001 but the silly summer camp comedy has endured and director David Wain has been enjoying the \u2018slow-burn\u2019 appreciation<\/p>\n
In the summer of 2001, the film critic Roger Ebert wrote a scathing film review in song form, with lyrics set to the tune of a classic song about summer camp. \u201cHello muddah, hello fadduh \/ Here I am at Wet Hot American Summah,\u201d it began. The review proceeded to mock the film Wet Hot American Summer in rhyme.<\/p>\n
Twenty-five years later, the film\u2019s director and co-writer, David Wain, joined several of its stars on the vast lawn of the Autry Museum in Los Angeles to sing the review to a crowd of thousands, many of them wearing Camp Firewood T-shirts and 80s-style sweat absorbers. The performance preceded an anniversary screening of what has become a cult classic.<\/p>\n
Ebert was one of many critics at the time who seemed baffled by the comedy, which follows the absurd adventures of a group of horny and\/or lovelorn counselors desperate to make the most of their final day of camp in 1981. But if those early critics didn\u2019t quite get it, plenty of viewers later did \u2013 enough to warrant two Netflix series, a place on various lists of the best films of the century, and a return to theaters this month to mark its 25th anniversary.<\/p>\n
What changed over the years? \u201cI would say that it\u2019s just a slow-burn kind of movie,\u201d Wain says. \u201cI think there was a certain hostility among the first round of critics, being like, \u2018Why was this even made?\u2019\u201d But the film\u2019s quiet release ultimately served it well. Fans who discovered the movie in the ensuing years felt like \u201c\u2019this is my thing. You need to know about it,\u2019\u201d Wain says. \u201cThere was a sense of ownership over it that I think made people connect to it in a deeper way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps one reason the movie didn\u2019t initially land is that its humor is difficult to define. It\u2019s not a satire or a coming-of-age film or a straight camp-movie parody, though it does play on tropes like the training montage and the \u201canonymously evil\u201d kids at a rival camp. But mostly, the camp serves as a setting that lends itself to an extremely high joke rate.<\/p>\n
Early critics might have gone in \u201cwith a certain expectation of what a comedy is supposed to be\u201d and ended up unsure what to make of the movie, Wain says. Sometimes \u201cthe joke is that it\u2019s so unfunny, or that there\u2019s not a joke\u201d. And much of the humor plumbs the depths of ridiculousness in a way that might have left early viewers dumbfounded \u2013 like when a group of nerds saves the camp from falling space junk, or when the counselors plan a reunion for 10 years in the future but can\u2019t decide whether to meet at 9am or 9.30. Wain describes the humor as \u201cjoyfully nihilistic\u201d. The jokes warp the boundaries of reality, but they work because they never lose touch with it. \u201cThe actual bedrock of it is: what was summer camp like for me in real life? What was it like to be that age in real life? And then draping all of these spoofy things around that,\u201d Wain says. The goal for the performances is sincerity rather than silliness.<\/p>\n
Nor does the movie have a clear central plotline \u2013 while our hearts are with Coop (Michael Showalter), the well-meaning counselor who keeps losing out to Paul Rudd\u2019s monstrous but very hot Andy in his pursuit of Katie (Marguerite Moreau), the film\u2019s many storylines are given fairly equal weight. That gives breathing room to the alarmingly starry cast.<\/p>\n
It was Bradley Cooper\u2019s first film, and among the first for Elizabeth Banks; it also stars Janeane Garofalo, as a camp director courting a local astrophysicist, played by David Hyde Pierce; Rudd as a counselor who\u2019d rather let kids risk drowning than have to look up from a makeout session; Amy Poehler as a camp theater director who berates child cast members for not being Broadway-caliber; and Molly Shannon as an arts and crafts teacher who receives life coaching from a 10-year-old. Showalter, who co-wrote the movie, has gone on to direct films including The Big Sick, The Idea of You, and The Eyes of Tammy Faye.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wrote the whole thing with no actors in mind at all,\u201d Wain says. The goal was to make a summer-camp movie inspired by their time as campers and counselors themselves. \u201cWe just vomited out back and forth to each other everything we could think of that had to do with each of our summer camp experiences,\u201d Wain says. Many of those experiences made it into the movie, including an improbable incident in which a counselor, played by Ken Marino, is rushing back to camp to meet a crush and drives straight into a tree. Wain was that counselor. \u201cI had just turned 16,\u201d he says. After dropping kids off for an overnight trip, \u201cI left late at night instead of early in the next morning because I was desperate to see this girl I had just met, and I smashed the van into a tree.\u201d<\/p>\n
Filming, at a camp in Pennsylvania, was difficult. It rained almost every day, meaning the crew had to find constant workarounds for planned outdoor scenes. Some were moved inside; others were shot under partial cover; audio had to be re-recorded because the rain made it impossible to hear. But the whole experience was reminiscent of summer camp, Wain says. \u201cWe were all away from home, out of town, on location, the first time doing this for so many of us, and we all bonded,\u201d Wain says. (The shoot was the subject of a film of its own, Hurricane of Fun: The Making of Wet Hot.)<\/p>\n
That bond has clearly held. Since Wet Hot, Wain\u2019s films have included Role Models, written with Marino; They Came Together, written with Showalter; and this year, Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass. All of them have included fellow members of sketch comedy troupe the State and other cast members from Wet Hot American Summer. \u201cWe were doing [TV series] The State when we were very, very young, and we recognized at the time, when we were 18, that this was a special thing that we found each other,\u201d Wain says. \u201cWe said out loud at the time: \u2018Let\u2019s not ruin this.\u2019\u201d They vowed to keep working together, and they\u2019ve succeeded. \u201cWe continually recognize that it\u2019s a gift to be able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though Gail Daughtry, also written with Marino, got a theatrical release, studios have been reluctant to back comedies in recent years. This year has seen an overall box-office resurgence, but comedies remain few and far between. \u201cThere\u2019s talk of the pendulum swinging back and comedies coming back, and I hope that\u2019s true,\u201d Wain says. \u201cI just feel like going to a movie theater to see a comedy and laughing together is at least as important to me as going to a movie to see a big spectacle together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wain has spent the summer with those audiences, visiting cities including New York, Waterville, Maine (where the film is set) and San Francisco with his and Marino\u2019s band, Middle Aged Dad Jam Band, and performing Theodore Shapiro and Craig Wedren\u2019s music from the film.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t love always looking backwards. I try to stay focused on what\u2019s now and in the future as much as I can,\u201d he says. But the tour has been \u201cabsolutely wonderful. People come up to me and say really beautiful things about how this movie has entertained them, or affected them, or been a bonding thing with them and their friends or their loved ones, or got them through hard times,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd the other thing about it, which makes me so happy, is this is a movie that is by design not trying to achieve anything except to make you laugh.<\/p>\n