Wet Hot American Summer is a wacky and goofy satire of ’80s summer romp flicks. On the last day of Camp Firewood’s summer season in the woods of Maine, several campers and chaperones—Beth (Janeane Garofalo), Professor Henry Newman (David Hyde Pierce), Gail von Kleinenstein (Molly Shannon), Andy (Paul Rudd), Coop (Michael Showalter, also a co-writer), and Katie (Marguerite Moreau), among about one- or two-dozen others—decide and encourage each other to dedicate their final hours to romance and fun. In a sexually charged environment with kids and adults of all ages except the elderly, love triangles form, people’s true colors arise, and the fun cranks even as a NASA space station piece hurtles at them.

Wet‘s title should be taken literally. Focused entirely on sex, romance, and pleasure, Wet gets Hot for these American Summer enthusiasts from the get-go as it opens to kids leaving each other’s cabins in droves after a night of steamy dreams. “You guys aren’t supposed to be out of your bunks. You’re in trouble,” desensitized camp director Beth Holland at the hoardes. While jarring, Wet immediately dives deep into the vulgarity of its premise without much breathing, especially with its ginormous ensemble of not-well-developed misfits. Only to swiftly jump two hours later into a geeky radio announcement from an unshowered shut-in somewhere in camp about the last day’s opportunities, sexual tension erupts everywhere. Katie and her boyfriend Andy, for example, want very different things in the beginning; the former wants them to be soulmates and even asks as much, fingers gripped and facial expression tightened in a worried gaze, only to hear: “What? Yeah. Whatever, if you want.” For many, lust is a larger driver than love, as Andy so clearly demonstrates as he “French’s” other camp goers behind Katie’s back.

As close friend Coop slowly gets closer to Katie and learns of her situation with Andy, however, he comes to despise the sleaze as he continues cheating on Katie and being lustful and lazy in most cases (brought to cartoonishly flamboyant life from Paul Rudd). Seeing Katie hurt and through growing closer to her over only hours, he feels what none of the other campers have come close to: love. While still only a small section of an otherwise unfocused, toilet bowl humored summer day, watching Coop’s growth from such vulnerable and kind feelings becomes the appealing beacon of this mindless sexcapade; workout montages and introspective instances with a crazed camp cook allow him the most development of them all. Even as Katie rejects him, coming to the film’s only mature realization in that she does in fact prioritize lust like Andy because she’s young, Coop comes out a new man: one more clear-minded and action oriented than before.

Though some heartfelt ideas shine through, Wet is primarily gimmicky and overstuffed. The plotting is sloppy (though not without its meta-synced quirks), as no central premise arises until about halfway through. There are simply too many characters and side stories to keep track of—only one of about six subplots with only three of the film’s 15-20 faces are mentioned above for good reason. Some of the gimmicks can feel far fetched, too, but for vulgar fans they will work wonders. And, fortunately, inclusion of most members of the comedy group The State elevates the film beyond a montage of sketch comedy bits in between sexual encounters with their balancing tongue-and-cheek performances—their power is where the film thrives. Either way, Wet Hot American Summer is as hilarious as it is mindless, satirizing a generation of moviemaking with a star-studded cast in tick-infested woods where being horny is encouraged. For cast fans, summer comedy fans and mindless romp fans, Wet will laugh and screw the time away so long as it isn’t seen as anything beyond dumb, primitive hilarity.

Screens in 35 mm Thursday, 5/29, 9:30 p.m. @ Coolidge Corner Theatre
Part of the ongoing repertory series: Cult Classics