High school student Allison Chambers (Naomi Grace) narrowly escapes with her life after watching her girlfriend Melissa (Olivia Nikkanen) murdered by a killer dressed as a judge. The killing is the first of a spree in the small-town Allison lives in, which is gearing up for a heated mayoral election. As the bodies pile up, Allison and her friends try to find out who is behind the murders and stop them before anyone else gets killed.
‘Founders Day’ is from writers Erik and Carson Bloomquist (and directed by Erik) and it’s a throwback to the 90s slasher films that reignited interested in the horror sub-genre. If you didn’t know any better, you’d be forgiven for thinking it came out alongside ‘Scream’, ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ and ‘Urban Legend’, and it certainly styles itself in the vein of those films. With plenty of gory kills and some genuinely decent set-pieces, ‘Founders Day’ is always watchable even if you know you’re not watching top tier slasher horror.
There are a few odd decisions along the course of ‘Founders Day’. The opening moments don’t immediately jump to the first kill, instead introducing us to a series of characters with zero context, before we get to the payoff we’re expecting from the off. Then after introducing all these characters, there’s little effort put in to connecting them with one another. Most characters are paired up and they don’t really have much to do with one another, so that Scooby Gang feel of 90s slashers is lost.
Perhaps the film’s biggest misstep though is its baffling ending. I won’t give it away in this review but suffice to say it pushes too far past the boundaries of believability, and in doing so undermines everything that came before it. It feels like a cop out and honestly, it just doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense.
Where the film does succeed is in the whodunnit aspect. I genuinely had no idea who the killer (or is it killers?) was and there are plenty of red herrings along the way. There’s a genuine feeling that any one of the characters could be behind the mask, and that is a fun element. The young cast, for the most part, does a decent job too. Naomi Grace shows potential as a final girl while ’13 Reasons Why’ star Devin Druid is one of the standouts from the supporting cast.
‘Founders Day’ desperately wants to be as smart as ‘Scream’ but it never manages. There’s an attempt at satire in the script but it never really amounts to anything. The political battle at the heart of the film is the least interesting thing about it so trying to shoehorn some social commentary in doesn’t really work. What people want to see in slasher films is people getting killed in weird and wonderful ways. ‘Founders Day’ still manages to be entertaining enough but it’s not as smart or good as it could have been.
Cast: Naomi Grace, Devin Druid, William Russ, Amy Hargreaves, Emilia McCarthy, Olivia Nikkanen, Tyler James White, Andrew Stewart-Jones Director: Erik Bloomquist Writers: Erik Bloomquist & Carson Bloomquist Certificate: 15 Duration: 106 mins Released by: Blue Finch Film Releasing Release date: 29th April 2024 Buy ‘Founders Day’ now
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