Directed By Erik Bloomquist

Starring – Naomi Grace, Devin Druid, William Russ

The plot – In this bold political slasher, a small town is shaken by a series of ominous killings in the days leading up to a heated mayoral election. As accusations fly and the threat of a masked killer darkens every street corner, the residents must race to uncover the truth before fear consumes the town.

Rated R for strong bloody violence, adult language and some sexual references

Founders Day – Official Trailer (2023) Naomi Grace, Devin Druid, William Russ (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

Political slashers are as rare of a subgenre as you’re going to find in cinema, and while “Founders Day” and Bloomquist don’t exactly make the most of its cherished opportunity, there are some aspects within the film that flourish in combining the worlds of campy horror and political satire. For starters, I love the setting that Bloomquist illustrates seamlessly, both in executing the ideals of small town Americana, whose traditions feel like its sole purpose, but also the citizens themselves, with their own unique rivalries and clashing pasts that are continuously shrouded in mystery as keys towards unlocking their respective motivations. Because the movie’s production makes the most in generating set pieces in various locations throughout the town, we get a tangible sense of familiarity and telegraphing geography that grows easier with the progression of the engagement, setting a boiling powderkeg of a stage for the showdown that starts with the divide between two respective political parties, before evolving into a high stakes bloodbath inside of this town’s dirty secret. Beyond the setting, I also found the elements of the mystery to be most appealing to the film’s prominence, primarily in the unconventional directions that it continuously takes towards intensifying the big reveal of this killer. As expected, when the film begins, I really couldn’t care less about this masked lunatic spreading carnage throughout, as I instead value characterization in the opening act to apraise the stakes all the more effectively, but as the film progressed, I did find myself and my investment growing stronger with a series of mini reveals throughout that feverishly keeps audiences guessing, with fake-outs and expanding character narratives that exploit the aforementioned elements of political dissention, all the while testing my usually air tight intuition with predicting killers. For the record, I did accurately predict the killer in this movie, but doing so was only a small fraction of the movie’s bigger picture, and while the big reveal during the climax is plagued by convoluted execution that stacks the explanation like teetering blocks in a game of Tetris, I can capably say that I didn’t expect what eventually materialized with the scope of this movie’s conflict. Lastly, most of the performances are problematic from an emotionality standpoint, but I did find William Russ to tap into a compelling mystique and stoic resiliency that felt like the only actor who knew exactly what movie he was supposed to be acting towards. Russ himself is a producer to the film, so that investment could have a lot to do with his direction feeling most refined, however there’s a magnetism to his rugged charisma that I previously found so alluring during his turns in “American History X” and of course his iconic turn as Mr. Matthews in “Boy Meets World”, which made his casting perfect as the town historian who often holds it all together when things go sideways.

NEGATIVES

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Bloomquist loves Wes Craven so much that he’s decided to homage his 1996 slasher classic “Scream” behind nearly every element of the film’s creativity. Respecting an iconic property is one thing, but the masked knife-wielding killer, boisterously obnoxious score, and identical shots and imagery has this film vapid of the kind of originality that allows it to stand out on its own, hoping to skim by in tapping into the nostalgia for that aforementioned film that fans of it should be able to recognize here with little to no struggle. Aside from derivative material and filmmaking alike, the script here is so chaotically contrived that it never finds any kind of even accidental momentum to allure audiences in to the abundance of characters that it unloads at our feet in the movie’s opening ten minutes. Part of the issue certainly lends itself to so many of these characters serving as one dimensional types instead of living, breathing entities, with Naomi Grace’s leading protagonist being the dullest of them all, but much more emphasis pertains towards their unloaded exposition, which is upchucked forcefully in this kind of tongue in cheek dialogue that I didn’t know whether to laugh or commit my attention faithfully towards. Because the film’s tonal inconsistencies want it all in 90’s campiness and scintillating drama, it never finds a comfortable medium to commit itself towards, and with some of the worst acting, intentional or not, that I have seen from a collective ensemble in quite sometime, I found myself with a throbbing headache from all of the times I found myself rolling my eyes at the ridiculous interractions. Channeling campiness in everything from dialogue to atmospheric range is actually a tougher art to master than realized, and if done poorly, like the kind here with the kind of humor that elicits groans over gags, can sacrifice investment to a film towards making it feel like an arduous experience. This is where it really gets ugly, because the film is laced with this cheap vibe that eventually becomes distracting to the integrity of its entertainment factors, with even underwhelming gore and kills that can’t even manage the easiest capabilities to the film’s favor. While I commend the production for its commitment towards practical effects in everything from make-up to blood splatters, the kind utilized here rarely ever reach believability in the way they’re realized, and with such jarring editing techniques and cinematography in the way these kills are captured, somehow requires more imagination in the mind of the audience than I was expecting, which is all the weirder considering this film takes ample opportunity in splashing buckets of blood inside of its cherished R-rating. All of these issues are simulataneously absorbed with this aforementioned mind-numbingly obnoxious music compositions, with sound mixing so abrasive that I found myself clutching my ears in a theater with some of the weakest speaker systems in town. Sometimes its lyrical tracks narrating montages between developments that don’t quite fit into the film’s 100 minute run time, while other times it’s these forceful jolts of sonic blasts whenever a character opens a cabinet or even gets into an automobile, and considering the film surprisingly doesn’t reach for many jump scares in the manifestation of its masked killer, the sharp contrasts of notes to its musical accompanyment felt every bit unnecessary and alienating from a distracting emphasis. Finally, while I commended the script for stacking adversity in me being able to accurately predict the complete picture of the killer and their motivations, I think the arguably inconclusive ending will be most integral towards audience’s final grade, especially since they’re being asked to swallow some pretty enormous leaps in logic. It’s not that the resolution is non-existent, as there is a confrontation and winner to the high stakes climactic final battle, but what follows it is a bit silly in the motivations of one particular character, and with this portion of the film hell bent on explaining as many things as possible with the plan of the killer, it’s easy to nitpick just which parts wouldn’t fit logically in the real world.

OVERALL
“Founders Day” proves no holiday or audience is safe from lukewarm horror with little to no originality in its favor. With expansively awful acting in nearly every one of the collective ensemble, cheaply alienating technical merits, and derivative familiarity borrowed so obviously from other icons of the genre, Bloomquist isn’t able to conjure an impact of his own, leaving this political slasher impeached the weight of expectations in even the simplest things that it can’t fulfill.

My Grade: 4/10 or D