Dead of Summer is an American supernaturalhorror television series created by Adam Horowitz, Edward Kitsis and Ian Goldberg for Freeform. The series is set in the "1980s" at Camp Stillwater, a Midwestern summer camp. 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 and Kitsis/Horowitz. Adam Horowitz, Edward Kitsis and Ian Goldberg wrote and executive-produced the series. Steve Pearlman 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.
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 creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and one-time-writer Ian B. Goldberg. In February 2016 it was reported that Lost and Once Upon a Time stars Elizabeth Mitchell and Elizabeth Lail 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.
Dead of Summer has initially received mixed reviews from television critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 54% approval rating, with an average rating of 5.6 out of 10, based on 13 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 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 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."
