Dead of Summer has initially received mixed reviews from television critics. The
review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes reported a 63% approval rating, with an average rating of 6.05 out of 10, based on 16 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." ==References==