Unraveling the Twisted Tale of Founders Day: A Horror Film Review

Exploring Pertinent Topics Through Horror

Horror can be a gateway to exploring pertinent topics — grief, politics, and mental illness are just a few that come to mind. Founders Day, directed by Erik Bloomquist from a screenplay by him and Carson Bloomquist, struggles to string its multiple story threads together. The dialogue is a bit wooden, and the flat small town politics should be more engaging than they actually are. The result is a horror film that has a lot of interesting ideas, but they’re ones that never fully work or come together cohesively.

Allison looks scared while staring ahead in Founders Day

Thin Character Development

To properly understand any film, I have to understand the characters and their motivations. To that end, Founders Day’s characters are severely lacking in any depth and too often feel like caricatures of people with far more intrigue than we’re given. The poor acting choices don’t exactly help, and the film is too self-serious for its own good. William Russ’ turn as Mr. Jackson, the kindly history teacher, is a grounding force and his performance exemplifies what the film might have been had every actor given as strong a performance. And yet, Russ isn’t exactly helped by the Bloomquists’ script, which is infatuated with providing too many red herrings and plot twists. By the time of the big reveal, I wasn’t exactly clear on what any of the characters were truly gaining from any of the murders, or what changes were so worth fighting for that they would resort to such rampant violence to achieve them. Perhaps it’s because none of the characters had pathos. The result is a horror film that has a lot of interesting ideas, but they’re ones that never fully work or come together cohesively. Even when the killings occurred, the script didn’t leave room for the characters to process the shock and grief. One-dimensional portrayals of Mayor Gladwell (Amy Hargreaves) and Harold Faulkner (Jayce Bartok) are especially egregious because their heartlessness and consistent attempts to one-up each other render them more comical than twisted. Naomi Grace does the best she can to imbue Allison with quiet strength and sadness, but she barely has time to emote before the next murder sends her running.

William Russ looks sideways at his class in Founders Day

A Story All Over the Place

The film’s story seems rather simple: A battling mayor and her opponent are too caught up in winning the upcoming elections to actually do anything they promised their town, much less be there for their children. Enter the masked murderer, whose killing spree starts with Faulkner's rebellious daughter, Melissa (Olivia Nikkanen). The themes are there, too, as Founders Day explores the issues with politicians and their empty vows, and what might happen when the focus becomes on maintaining power and winning over everything else. However, the film tries to do way too much and its ending suffers greatly for it. Employing more than one killer is meant to throw us off, but all it does is create too many loose threads the film’s ending tries to tie up all nice and neat. It didn’t work, and the conclusion left me feeling empty and indifferent, rather than horrified and tense. The pacing is fine overall, but it doesn’t help that the biggest moment is shoe-horned into the final minutes with a couple of scenes that are meant to shock more than prove a point. As for the horror, Founders Day is replete with gruesome, gory kills and a masked killer who enjoys stabbing and slicing at every opportunity. A judge’s gavel as the murder weapon is a nice touch and adds to the killers’ warped sense of justice. The jump scares are also fairly decent, but it’s hard to be fully immersed when other aspects of the horror film are lacking. Founders Day could’ve been camp, but it holds back. With a premise worth engaging with, the film can’t quite grasp what its full intentions are and the execution reflects that.

the cast of founders day stands together on the poster