Founders Day: a genre film struggling to be more

Erik Bloomquist directs from a script by himself and his writing partner, brother Carson a not-bad stab (yes, I wrote that semi-intentionally) at a politic-centric slasher flick that has way too much going on and consequently, just can't quite deliver all the goods. It does deliver some, but it's too stuffed with characters that should have been elided or not given so much prominence (particularly as they relate to what should be a kind of conspiracy ring) because they lead to a denouement that lacks complete sense and just doesn't land.

The gist of the film is that we're in a small northeastern town, could be New England, doesn't really matter and thankfully, no one is trying to do accents. There's a heated mayoral race going on between the current mayor, Blair Gladwell (Amy Hargreaves, who knows exactly what kind of movie she's in and leans as far into going big as possible and wonderfully so), running on a ticket of "consistency", and her opponent Harold Faulkner (Jayce Bartok, saddled with a quizzically written role; is he supposed to be sympathetic? Sure, but he's so shrill and defensive that any sympathy for his character is undercut) who is promoting change and moving forward in the community.

The election is to take place the day after Founders Day, a big day in the little hamlet, but the beginning of the body count starts when Faulkner's daughter Melissa is murdered right in front of her girlfriend. Before long, Gladwell's daughter is murdered, as well, and eventually, Faulkner's other child - his son Adam - meets his fate. Along the way, the obligatory horny teens are whacked and the town's police commissioner succumbs, as well. Right as she's discovered the bodies of both candidates and the murderer standing right there.

By the time we get there, a film that started out relatively lean balloons into side-plots, distracting intrigues that don't amount to very much, and a recurring shift in focus. By the end of the film when one character tells the final girl that "it's always been about the campaign", it's difficult to take that as motivation seriously, even after the mastermind (who, if you didn't see it coming half an hour into the movie, tells me you've never seen a movie before) is revealed and the motivation laid out more clearly.

Because the movie tips its hand relatively early on, none of the red herrings work, and the film feels longer than its one hour and forty-six minute runtime. Paring down the sidetracks might have meant not being able to tick off a couple of genre convention check boxes, but it would have made for a tighter, funnier, and more pointed film.

There's a lot that doesn't work, but what does almost salvages the movie. Well, as in "almost, but not quite...kind of far from 'not quite', if we're being honest" territory. 

What should work better is the parallel structure of high school seniors and their relationships switched back and forth with what the adults are doing. But this is defeated by variable performances and again, some deus ex machina stuff that could have been handled so much better. The Bloomquists would have done well to watch Wes Craven's first Scream and take better notes. 

Despite the variability of the performances, I feel like it's less the actors' faults than the script's. Our heroine, Allison Chambers, as played by Naomi Grace, should be either in utter catatonic shock from all she's gone through or should have gone full Jamie Lee Curtis and thrown herself more into getting to the root of the murders of not just her girlfriend, but the kids of both candidates. As written, Allison aces her history/civics (still not really sure that class was) class, but later evinces apathy toward politics. Also, Allison isn't the only character that doesn't make sense and this undercuts any points the film is trying to score in terms of political observation.

By their nature, slasher films can be studies in corruption and getting rid of rivals and as such, make for political allegories. When one comes along that purports to take political themes head on and make them front and center, they best not flub it with an overabundance of conformity to trope. 

I have no problem with the layering of teen angst and horny adolescent shenanigans as part of the deal with the genre, but they need to be handled well and in the service of narrative, not the other way around; this way, muddy moviemaking lies. There is promise in the overlap of the children of both candidates having been involved but split up partially because of their parents' campaign. There's a half-baked rivalry between the present boyfriend of the mayor's daughter and her ex, the son of the opposing candidate. But this just whiffs and descends into a really kind of stupid side-/non-issue. The kid is supposed to be one of the suspects (or one of those characters that we're supposed to think is a suspect), but turns out to be the doofus with a heart of gold and it isn't until practically the denouement that he teams up with Allison to - get ready - try to solve the murders!

Out of nowhere, he asks Allison that she wanted to retrace Melissa's steps (first of all, not exactly the metaphor I would have used since "steps" isn't exactly accurate; we see Melissa bludgeoned and tossed over off a bridge a few yards away from Allison who's been locked (literally) by her belt loop to the bridge. Once Melissa's defenestrated, Allison runs back into town in the middle of two rallies for each candidate. The voices are all overlapping and the two sides form a circle around Allison as we pull away in an aerial shot before the opening credits begin. It is the most effective cinematography in the whole film. It also could have been the singular most compelling shot thematically.

But even that's a whiff; no one even attempts to comfort or make sure Allison is okay. As I mentioned above, she should have been wrecked/traumatized or gone into full investigator mode (particularly as she's supposed to be one of the smart kids) but stuff just happens around her and no one really interacts with her except to ask if she's all right (a kind of running gag as Allison mentions several times that people are always asking her that). She's not alone, though

What is frustrating is the plot just happens. No one is really doing anything; not even Police Commissioner Petersen (the wonderful Catherine Curtin doing a Columbo turn that almost works) is really doing much in the way of investigating. When Allison's dad is questioned because he's the only person who's absence at the time of the murders is unaccounted for, you really do get the feeling it's just so Curtin can do her Columbo spin (with a nod to Telly Savalas's Kojack for good measure). It's stuff like that that derails many a nice little blood-soaked popcorn flick.

There's also the aforementioned horny, obnoxious teens. I'm fine with underwritten, stupid kids getting whacked in these things because, yes, it's part of the type. But way too much time is taken with Brittany and Tyler and they're just so, so very, very dumb. They're too dumb and offensive to care about but their dispatching just, frankly, takes too much time and lacks any kind of tension because we just don't care. Kill 'em and let's get on with it because the movie has set up the promise of something more thematically interesting than a simpleminded slasher film.

Except that it really hasn't. I'll say it again; the movie loses focus thematically for too much of its runtime, so that when we do learn that it was "always all about the campaign", we don't care and we don't buy it. As it is, the theme seems to be that political discourse is so polarized that each side has grown so extreme as to be a mirror image of the other. Gladwell is revealed to be beholden to corporate money/interests and Faulkner is, well...running against her, but the character is presented to be just as loud and bluntly developed as her, so...they're the same? 

That the film ends on what I assume is the Bloomquists' idea of a burn-it-all-down no matter the cost on the one hand doesn't even carry any weight because the success of the two central surviving characters is ethically compromised. Not that spoiling this film wouldn't be doing any damage, I'll still try to be vague; one of the survivors is Allison (spoiler; she's the final girl) and she goes along with the mastermind of the whole murdering plan thing. A year later, she's giving a valedictory speech that mirrors the town's new mayor's but - get this - you can tell by her expression that her conscience is starting to eat at her! Cue up the sequel - STAT!

As I mentioned, the performances are variable and I will stand by it being a scripting problem. Almost everyone in this film is a character actor whose done some solid work over the years; even the younger cast is pretty accomplished after checking out their backgrounds. but you quickly get the sense that excising a number of characters would have tightened things up nicely and a better written script could have maintained a better sense of satire and foregrounding whatever point the writers were trying to make.

That said, Andrew Stewart-Jones as Allison's father and William Russ as Mr. Jackson (Allison's teacher) are the only other cast members beside Hargreaves and Curtin who seem to have a handle on their characters and acquit themselves well. Devin Druid as Adam Faulkner is in a similar boat as Naomi Grace. In fact, it's their scenes together that actually resonate out of all this, but it's mostly for small pay-off for reasons I won't go into (like, oh, he's not what he seems! Shocking, I know...)

Of course, I'm not making a lot of sense when I say that I actually kind of like this movie. I do like the genre and when it's done well, it can - like all genres - offer more than tropes and cliches. Founders Day doesn't quite do that but I have to give it some kind of acknowledgement for at least trying. I enjoyed what humor there is in the film and if you know your slasher flicks, you know where the laughs are. The manners in which a couple of the victims meet their end is worth a chortle. I wouldn't call it a complete waste of time, if you're a fan; however, I wouldn't suggest it's necessary to pay full price to see it theatrically. 

In terms of the killer at the center of the film; not bad. Think Guy Fawkes meets Ghostface and armed with a gavel with a projectable blade hidden in the handle. The kills are handled mostly with practical effects and a couple of times we see some CG enhanced spray. Too bad the film surrounding the Big Bad is such a muddle.