John Isberg Talks ‘Final Summer’ – An 80’s Inspired Slasher
Final Summer is a new slasher horror movie. What inspired you to write the story, and how did you come up with the concept for it?
I grew up on the slasher classics of the 1980’s. I had older cousins who would often argue over who would win in a fight between Jason or Freddy. It’s funny to think that later on they made that argument into a movie, lol. My cousins Tim and Doug shared a lot of their love for slasher films with me. From a personal point of view, I wanted to make a slasher film about being a survivor as I am also one. I was in a relationship with someone who was a sociopath and experienced a lot of emotional and psychological abuse, gaslighting, manipulation and it was quite terrifying. When you escape from a situation like that, it becomes hard to relate to normal things. I started to relate to the character of the final girl as a sign of strength and resiliency. I think because film is such a difficult thing to do, I think you have to look for the personal in order to survive the process and see your film through, because it is that hard.
The opening of Final Summer reminded me of classic campfire legends in films like The Burning and had Friday the 13th vibes. Were these slashers a significant influence on your love for horror?
I love the classic slasher film campfire story. There was an nod to the campfire story from “Friday the 13th Part II” but I think a bigger influence on the campfire story was the slasher film, “Madman” which I love. I love a lot of the early 1980’s slasher films, “The Burning”, ‘The Prowler”, “Final Exam”, “My Bloody Valentine” and my all time favorite, Bob Clark’s “Black Christmas”. I think I love the visual language of those films, from the posters to the cinematography, the characters from them.
You were able to secure two horror fan favorites for Final Summer: Tom Atkins (visual only) and Thom Mathews, who played the Sheriff. Did you consider having Tom Atkins make a cameo appearance in the film? What was it like working with Thom Mathews?
Tom Atkins was great to lend his image to the film! I always loved him in films like “The Fog” and “Halloween III”, “Night of the Creeps” and the remake of “My Bloody Valentine” so it was really cool to be able to include him in the film. It was still the height of the covid pandemic so I was trying to think of ways to incorporate fun easter eggs into the film and it was cool that he agreed to it! Thom Mathews was awesome to work with. He has a strong film vocabulary from his extensive experience working on films and it was fun to work with him. I wish I had him longer on set, but that’s why there’s a sequel! On a personal level, I think he could relate to some of the themes of the film and it was great to be able to talk with him. And to have someone who played such an iconic character in one of my favorite Friday films in the series, Tom McLoughlin’s “Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives” in “Final Summer” was really special.
In Final Summer, some kills are shown off-screen. Can you tell us if this was a creative choice for suspense, or was it influenced by budget constraints?
It was a bit of both. I had to turn down $50k four days from the start of production due to some con artist investors who were essentially stealing the film. They had sent over legal paperwork on a Friday before we were to start filming and after looking it over, I realized they were stealing the IP and copyright to register with the US copyright office. They kept saying “oh what if you run off with the money, etc”. I was thinking, why would I run anywhere when you are giving me funds to make my dream happen. Ridiculous. I told them I couldn’t take their money, we held an emergency meeting that night with the cast and crew, they agreed to continue and we made the film with a $16k kickstarter, a few family friend investors and the rest out of pocket. I think that had an impact on the film in terms of practical effects that we could afford.
I found out later that they had a 3 year 10 picture deal with Netflix for 100 million dollars they never told me about, so I assumed that they were going to take the film, pitch it to Netflix and turn around and make it with Netflix money and our film would be shelved. And after that, I found out they were under investigation by the SEC for a gold fraud scheme where they had bilked seniors out of their retirement savings to the tune of $67 million dollars. All I wanted to do was make a slasher film, lol. The whole thing was insane, like how did I even get in that situation?
For some scenes, it was intentional. Because of the themes of gaslighting, there are moments where I wanted to leave what was happening on a wide shot so that the audience would see everything and not be able to deny what just happened. So much of gaslighting is about making you feel crazy for things you know to be true, so there were moments where the violence wasn’t the point, it was what came after the violence that was what I wanted the audience to see. To see the gaslighting that was happening.
Spoiler Alert The ending of Final Summer leaves us with the unsettling feeling that the killers may still be on the loose. Can you shed some light on the intention behind this ending? Was it meant to suggest
that the real killer was still at large?
There is a lot that is happening behind the scenes in the first film, there are some characters that you didn’t really get to know and there is much more under the surface than at first glance. There is a plan in place that is happening and because you are mainly with the counselors, you don’t fully see all the manipulation, the lies, the distortions that are happening. This goes back to my own experience and what I went through. There were many times when I thought I’d solved the puzzle when in reality, I was looking at only one side of a Rubik’s cube of a puzzle. I think when you consider a villain like the one in the first film, they are making moves that you don’t see that ensure they will win, like a chessboard and every piece or person they are using has utility, every move has an intention. I think where I stumbled was in not thinking, well wait, what if I don’t make another film, lol. So I think that was a lesson I learned, was to better balance what you show vs. what you don’t. There is someone else, and while we have seen them in the first film, I think the second film will better address that question.
One part of the first film was that the theme was fight or flight. I taught kids in middle school with emotional disabilities for four years and they all had PTSD and a lot of them lived through extreme trauma, I have PTSD from my situation and my dad who was a paramedic for 35 years also had PTSD. I wanted to take a lot of the things I saw, the feelings I felt and put them into the film, and one of the things that happens when you are triggered and you have PTSD is you don’t care about answers, you just want to get away. You’re in that tunnel.
When you’re in those moments, you’re not looking for logic, you’re trying to escape whatever is triggering or threatening you. Run first, ask questions later, so to me, it never felt right for them to be asking, why is this happening? Who is doing this? I don’t think they had the time to ask that, they were just trying to survive. I think with films like “Scream”, the audience is handed the monologue at the end that tells them why things are happening. I think the reality is, that a person like that would never explain their intention, unless it was to inflict further pain, demonstrate their sense of narcissistic superiority, or it would be truth mixed with lies. It wouldn’t be satisfying because you couldn’t trust it anyways. But for an audience, I’ve learned they need a bit more so I think finding a balance is something I’ve learned through the first one and I’ll work to bring more clarity to the second one.
Are there any plans or story outlines for a potential sequel to Final Summer? If so, would the storyline continue from where the first film left off, and would you try to bring back Thom Mathews for it?
We are working on the sequel to shoot next summer. The teaser trailer and indiegogo will launch Friday the 13th, October, 2023 along with some cast announcements as well! I’m really excited for the story and I think it will resonate in a really cool way with audiences. The film is set in 1993 in the music scene of a sleepy college town not far from the camp. There are some returning characters from the first film and some new and familiar faces in the second. Thom Mathews has a larger role in the second film. The film will explore more of the background surrounding the first film, the Krug family and more. I played in a ton of bands and used to tour US/Canada in my twenties, put out records, music videos and I think the world of the film is really cool and will allow us to get out of the “summer camp slasher” shadow of “Friday the 13th” and let us be more our own thing. Being able to find a personal connection to the film through bands and music has been helpful to develop more fleshed out characters.
The theme of the first film is fight or flight, so I didn’t really have a chance to get too far into the world surrounding Camp Silverlake. The theme of the second film is that the truth is a killer. As I was untangling myself from gaslighting, manipulation and lies, the more I got closer to the truth, the more dangerous the person I was with became. They had constructed a narrative that was coming undone and as I tried to get people to see what I was going through, it just made things worse. That plays a big part in Part II.
The slasher genre has a rich history with many iconic films like The Mutilator, The Prowler, The Initiation, and Intruder. Can you share your personal favorite slasher movies and what makes them stand out to you as a filmmaker and horror enthusiast?
Oh man, so many, lol. You mentioned ‘The Mutilator/Fall Break” which I love. Buddy Cooper has the sequel to “The Mutilator” coming out soon! Also Tom Savini’s SFX in The Prowler is awesome, love the new wave bands and the look of the killer in that one. Intruder is one of my favorites! I got to meet Lawrence Bender this past year when he came to Ebertfest in Champaign. I shoot the annual festival doc interviews and b-roll and wore my “Intruder” shirt and he got a kick out of that, he’s a cool guy! I find his story inspiring as he started with a slasher film and went on to Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting.
I love the regional slashers of the 1980’s the most. I think there’s a handmade quality that I really love, vs. the studio slashers like “Happy Birthday to Me” where they try to dress it up. “Final Exam” is probably my favorite regional slasher film. I think “Raddish” (Joel S. Rice) is such a unique character for the time and you can really see where Randy from Wes Craven’s “Scream” was inspired by that character. I love the Canadian/Canuxploitation films as well. Bob Clark’s “Black Christmas” is my favorite slasher film, love “My Bloody Valentine”, Rodney Gibbons was the dp on that, the film looks fantastic, beautiful soft lighting, especially in the locker scene. And of course John Carpenter’s “Halloween”.
I was a kid in the 1980’s and I couldn’t watch the films and so they always had an allure to me. I had a friend named Josh who lived across the street from me who had cable and he’d tell me the plot to “Halloween II” on the way to school, lol. I think not seeing the films made them loom large in my head as a kid. The posters, imagery, soundtracks, the look of the killer, the titles, they just had a way of getting under my skin and staying with me.
Final Summer features a mix of suspense, gore, and psychological horror elements. How did you balance these different aspects to create a cohesive and engaging horror experience?
I think the main thing I wanted to really focus on was what the counselors were going through, what fight or flight feels like, what gaslighting feels like. I love the suspense of films like Ridley Scott’s “Alien” so I tried to model a lot of the structure after that film. It has such great rising tension. That sinking feeling that things have shifted and something is wrong but you can’t quite see the full picture or understand the true danger you are in till it’s too late.
After going through a lot of horror cons and film festivals, I see more clearly now that horror audiences really want more blood and guts, lol, so that’s an area that I’ll be improving on with the sequel. For the first one, I wanted audiences to see them not as just disposable characters but as relatable, to see themselves in the characters. I think for me, I need something more than gore to feel something. I wanted the villain in the film to go way beyond just trying to kill someone, but to destroy everything about them that is good. I think gore provides the shock, but the horror to me is taking it further into that darkness, really showing what some people are capable of doing.
To be continued…
Be sure to check out our review of Final Summer and for more horror reviews and recommendations look no further than here!
