Bartosz M. Kowalski’s home-invasion slasher has the freakiest mask of the year and an icy chill that makes it play like Michael Haneke remaking Scream.
Welcome to a modern slasher, Polish-style.
Before its centrepiece slumber party even begins, 13 Days of Summer lays its ground with a string of grim vignettes: a teenager stumbling across a body in the park from a local murder, scenes of school bullying, and the fallout from a boy dropping one girl for another. Only after this run of tensions and humiliations does the story funnel into the house party that sets the stage for the night’s siege.
The film’s teenage sleepover, in a gleaming smart house, turns nightmarish when the kids wake to find the doors and windows sealed shut. Someone is inside with them, masked and murderous. What follows is lean, brutal, and unnervingly precise: a stripped-down survival game where technology traps you instead of keeping you safe.
Kowalski shoots the interiors with crisp clarity, so the geography of the house is always clear even in near-darkness. The violence, when it arrives, is sudden and punishing, delivering sharp blows rather than spectacle. This isn’t wall-to-wall popcorn horror, but a patient, deliberate escalation.
The killer’s outfit deserves special mention: uncanny, surreal, and instantly iconic. With an upside-down face, it gives the killer a nightmarish presence, one of those images that burns into memory – the year’s most chilling slasher mask.
Kowalski has spoken of wanting to make horror “normal” in Polish cinema, and here he doubles down on that mission. The film strips away comfort and humour, embracing a stark minimalism. The ending, already dividing audiences, refuses to offer relief – a final stroke that leaves the film colder and more unsettling. Kowalski is unafraid to give us a film that uncompromising and stripped to the bone.
Polish audiences have responded strongly to that severity, which sets 13 Days Till Summer apart from standard genre offerings. It feels less like a routine slasher and more like an experiment in how far you can pare horror down without losing impact.
13 Days Till Summer may not chase easy thrills, and to the extent its positioned as a straightforward slasher it may hit the wrong audience. But its icy precision, brutal clarity, and unforgettable mask secure its place as one of the year’s sharpest discoveries – a slasher drained of comfort, and all the stronger for it.
13 Days Till Summer played at Fantastic Fest in Austin TX
Whitlock&Pope 