In 2015, Todd Strauss-Schulson left audiences wanting more when the credits began to roll on his slasher comedy, The Final Girls. Throughout the film, viewers watched as a group of unsuspecting friends were sucked into an ‘80s horror movie and forced to survive. “By the end, the group thinks they’ve escaped and returned to their timeline only to discover that they’ve actually just stepped into the next chapter of the Camp Bloodbath story, the sequel, Camp Bloodbath: Cruel Summer.” Even with a clear setup for a sequel, a second installment has yet to come to fruition, leaving many of us hanging on the edge and yearning for more. In an interview with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff at the Scary Perri Horror Series at Landmark Theatres, Strauss-Schulson revealed what the hold-up has been and the team’s idea for a follow-up film.
“Believe it or not, the movie didn’t make enough money to warrant one,” the director says of why a sequel didn’t immediately go into the works adding, “Though it somehow has this life of its own and every year it screened in houses like this.” Still, Strauss-Schulson and the other minds behind the original film were ready to continue molding their story. “We had a good idea,” he says, “They tried to do it as a TV show once. We had a good idea for a sequel, all the actors would love to do it, but ‘What’s Final Girls?’”
A question that we can’t believe anyone would ask, it’s sad to hear that studios haven’t been jumping at the chance to give the people what they want. Thankfully, Nemiroff is a true hero and used her platform to speak a sequel into existence. “I like to take these Collider interview opportunities as a chance to maybe manifest something, so I would like a sequel,” she said. Revealing the vision that he and The Final Girls’ writers M.A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller came up with for the sequel, Strauss-Schulson said, “The vague idea that Josh and Mark had was that they would be out in the real world, and Billy, the actor who played Billy Murphy, was the dad. And so it would be about her and her dad in the real world, and all the other actors are now old and shitty, but real Billy’s in the real world, so real Billy and actor Billy have to duke it out in the real world, and all this fucking stuff.”
More Than a Horror Comedy
Those who’ve seen The Final Girls know that while it plays up the bloody aspect that one can expect from a horror film, while also leaning into comedic overtones, there’s also a sentimental side. One of the overarching plots is Taissa Farmiga’s Max Cartwright’s emotional reunion with her deceased mother, Amanda Cartwright (Malin Åkerman), by way of being sucked into the movie. With the sequel diving into Max’s relationship with her father, while having his Camp Bloodbath character running around with a thirst for more blood, the follow-up would’ve easily held that emotional edge while keeping the heart of the slasher alive.
For now, we’ll just need to dream that the cult following amassed by The Final Girls will one day be enough to work itself into a sequel – or even better – a franchise.
via Collider