Final Summer

This first film by John Isberg, is a good start but had conflictions in providing innovation or something fresh with 80s college teen slasher movies.

Considering its limitations of the story, it offers good night scenes, that are watchable which can be technically difficult to film. The actors deliver evotive reactions to the terror uleashed to them.

PTSD is a theme carried throughout the film, providing and giving some good dialogue. Its "final girl" trope is not strong, but her acting is good. Its chase scenes has suspense, but it lacks the tension provided with 80s slasher.

One interesting aspect that it was shot in rural Illinois's woods, has strong natural landscape locations. It one makes for a good start for Isberg, there is an interesting closing credits, hopefully to make more horror genre paths for this first directorial debut!

I would be interested to see what they could have pulled off with a bigger budget and a more seasoned director and cast. Not a terrible movie by any means, but as I said before, it just falls a little flat. The kills aren't particularly good, nor was there anything original. The story was very straight forward and basic until towards the end when there was a predictable "twist." Acting was not very good (not that I'm looking for Oscar caliber performances) I feel they could have done better. A movie like this could have been fine without much originality, but for me it failed to capture the atmosphere of an 80's or early 90's slasher.

Final Summer looks and acts like an homage, this is clearly from the poster, plot, cast and soundtrack. If specifically to Friday, I couldn't really say, because one of the cheapest horror genre is campers the woods type.

So we have Friday, but also The Burning, Sleepaway Camp, Final Girls and so on, movies that act in a specific way, one that isn't replicated here. You see, nothing worked for Final Summer and you really can't blame it on the budget.

After movies like Blairwitch or Evil Dead, this kind of horror doesn't require a big budget, but inspiration and dedication.

The dialogue here is bad, the characters stereotypical and annoying, acting is quite sub par, killshots barely visible, no gore, no nudity, one very sad excuse for a twist and the absolute worst killer I've seen, being taken down many times by the others. Just, never finished. There is some sort of fighting choreography that looks silly and fake at the same type.

So yes, you can indeed notice the fact that the people involved in Final Summer really did their best, they had their heart in the right place, but even for a starter project, this fell flat. No impact.

Thus not recommandable, do skip it and try something else. Plenty of fish out there, leave this one be.

Cheers!

Taking place at Silverlake camp, it is about to close and be sold for development. The owner says she has had it in the family, and the first year there were a couple of deaths, and each year after there were 'accidents'. So she is selling as the camp isn't viable anymore. One of the camp counselors makes a Jason joke, so is this a homage or a parody movie? Regardless, it would have been greatly improved if all killings took place in the first 10 minutes of the film. The actors seem earnest in their roles, although most seem amateurs, and when face to face with the killer, they immediately decide to make the worst possible decision. Dumb and inept seems an appropriate description. Difficult to care who get killed. The most adult of the group is among the first killed. Very predictable and a waste of time.

I would have give a better review if the movie was so out of focus. I'm guessing the people who made this movie must have bought their camera from a yard sale that wasn't in a good condition. Or either the director has bad eye sights and doesn't realized the film is out of focus? Either way, they should have done better than that. However the movie itself was okay, some cheesy kills that isn't possible was there, lol! But overall it was okay and the camera view was bad out of focus so that's really will hit the ratings for sure as I only give 4 stars for it. I don't like to watch a movie that isn't very clear. They need to improve and learn from their mistakes not to use cheap cameras.