Slasher Summer

In the small town of Cedar Lake, an eighties horror film called Slasher depicts a masked killer named Timmy Thompson who murders teens at a lakeside cabin. The real cabin still stands and has turned Cedar Lake into a tourist destination, complete with an annual fan convention called Slasher Summer. As the story opens, a hooded figure watches a shadow cast performance at the local Rialto Theatre, where teenagers reenact scenes from the film onstage while it plays on-screen. The figure silently notes that these performances have been only a dress rehearsal.

Carrie Zhao, now in her early twenties, returns to Cedar Lake for the first time in four years. She has recently left her possessive ex-boyfriend Daniel, who has been texting her threats. She visits her terminally ill mother hoping to reconcile, but her mother rejects her, still furious over an incident involving an explicit photograph from Carrie's senior year. Carrie's therapist has encouraged her to confront her past. At a gas station she encounters Ranger Russ Meachum, a pale local who eyes her silently.

Carrie heads for the cabin, where Patrick has arranged a farewell reunion for the Jumpscare Society, a high school horror film club he founded. Patrick is a Black, openly gay Harvard economics student who started the club after his family moved to Cedar Lake following his sister Clare's unsolved murder. Driving with him are Jason Ackerman, the group's former star quarterback, and Jason's cousin Michael "Mikey" Kline, a brainy MIT student. Jason is tense, recently split from his girlfriend Tiffany Podemski. The cabin is set for demolition, and Patrick wants one last gathering. Decorated to replicate its on-screen appearance, the cabin's main room features an antler chandelier suspended from exposed wooden beams. He has secretly brought professional chef's knives, planning a gourmet dinner drawn from culinary classes he has been taking. The group also includes Tiffany, a former cheerleader; Jen (Jennifer de la Fuente), a sardonic goth artist; and Freddy Min, a stoner who works as a custodian at the Rialto.

Carrie's arrival shocks everyone; Jen secretly invited her, believing the group needs to make peace. The backstory of "The Photo" emerges: four years earlier, Carrie, high on Freddy's weed brownies, posed nude in the Slasher's red jacket with a prop machete, hoping to attract Jason's attention. An offhand remark from Patrick about love requiring risk had spurred her to act. Jen snapped the photo and texted it to Jason. The image was printed and posted all over Cedar Lake High, destroying Carrie's reputation and driving her to flee to her father's home in Vancouver.

Freddy claims he saw someone dressed as the Slasher on the road. The group dismisses him, though Jen is unsettled, having spotted a mysterious figure watching from across the lake. Tiffany goes swimming alone, and someone grabs her ankles underwater, nearly drowning her before Carrie rescues her. Carrie reveals Daniel's threatening texts, and the group debates who could be stalking them.

A thunderstorm knocks out the power. The rotary telephone rings, and a gravelly voice delivers the Slasher's catchphrase: "You're all going to die tonight." The group votes to leave but discovers every vehicle's tires have been slashed. Michael attacks an approaching figure with a fireplace poker, but the visitor is Ranger Russ, who is knocked unconscious. While the group argues outside, Michael flees into the woods, distraught. When Patrick returns inside, Russ's body has vanished along with the largest kitchen knife.

Jason organizes a search in pairs, but the parties quickly fracture. Tiffany tries to kiss Jason; he pushes her away, privately grappling with his bisexuality. Jen deliberately abandons Patrick in the woods. Freddy and Carrie spot a dark figure holding an axe, and Freddy flees.

The killing begins. Freddy returns to the cabin and arms himself, but the Slasher finds him and drives a knife into his belly. In the woods, Jen fights back against the Slasher but is fatally impaled on broken tree trunks. Meanwhile, Carrie, Jason, Tiffany, and Patrick briefly reunite after hearing a cry for help. They chase the sound and tumble down a steep hillside, separating again.

Tiffany, injured from the fall, sees a light at the summer camp across the lake and swims for help. A motorboat speeds toward her, driven by the masked Slasher, who hacks her apart with an axe.

Patrick returns to the cabin and finds Freddy's body draped over the second-floor banister. He descends to the locked cellar, where the original Slasher film's props and memorabilia are stored, hoping to arm himself with the prop machete. Instead he discovers Russ Meachum's corpse with a kitchen knife embedded in his throat; the machete is not among the props he finds. Russ is not the killer. Michael, who witnessed Tiffany's murder from a dock, finds Jason and delivers the news. At the cabin, they confront the Slasher. Jason fires a flare gun, igniting a bookcase and scorching the chandelier's support beam, leaving the antler chandelier dangling precariously, before scaring the Slasher off. Patrick arrives and helps extinguish the fire.

Patrick finds Carrie on the beach cradling Tiffany's body. His phone displays a news alert: Daniel Williams, age 22, has been murdered in nearby Fairvale. Patrick connects the evidence: Daniel and Russ are both dead, and Michael had been desperate to prove himself to Carrie. He suspects Michael, who appears on the patio holding an axe.

In the cellar, accusations fly until Carrie quietly pulls on leather gloves, retrieves a hidden axe, and confesses. She killed Daniel as a practice run, killed Russ while everyone was outside, planted multiple Slasher costumes, and used copied keys from her old housecleaning job to prepare in advance. She credits her therapist, Wes, for teaching her to channel her rage: Her friends destroyed her life, and none of them ever faced consequences.

The three men flee upstairs. At the top, Michael pushes Patrick back down, knocking him unconscious, and reveals he has been Carrie's partner. He wore a second Slasher costume, set up the automated threatening phone call, cut the phone line, and slashed the tires. They planned to frame Russ or Jason. Michael stabs Jason in the right shoulder during the struggle.

Jason reveals the truth about The Photo: He deleted it immediately. Michael accessed Jason's phone, saved the image, and printed the copies himself, hoping the devastated Carrie would turn to him for comfort. Shaken by the revelation that Michael engineered the defining trauma of her life, Carrie decapitates him with the axe.

Carrie pursues Jason through the cabin. His right arm useless from the stabbing, he lures her beneath the damaged antler chandelier and hurls the rotary telephone upward. Its cord catches the antlers, pulling the fixture free and impaling Carrie through the face and chest. She collapses but rises one final time, screaming that she is the Final Girl, invoking the slasher-film trope of the lone woman who survives. Patrick, who survived his fall, appears behind Carrie and drives the Slasher film's prop machete, found at last in the cellar, through her back. "I'm the Final Girl, bitch," he declares.

Patrick cradles the barely conscious Jason, telling him to hold on. Nine months later, Patrick has dropped out of Harvard and enrolled in culinary school. Jason has quit football and opened a small diner in a Cape Cod town. They are now a couple. Slasher Summer has been canceled. A delivery driver brings Jason a poster tube containing a Slasher sequel poster with the tagline "EVERYONE NEEDS A FRESH START." Scrawled across the bottom in marker: "See you soon, boys! XOXO The Slasher." The delivery was arranged by someone named Wes, the name of Carrie's therapist, suggesting the threat has not ended.