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Founder's Day -- a review

The town of Fairwood, located in New England, is undergoing an intense mayoral election, which is coming just a few days after it celebrates its 300th anniversary. Harold Faulkner (Jayce Bartok) is running for mayor against the incumbent Blair Gladwell (Amy Hargreaves), and the campaign is already a fierce one. Tensions among the townsfolk are so thick you could cut it with a knife. And somebody’s been busy cutting up the townsfolk with an actual knife, along with whatever other weapon that’s lying around. An assailant clad in a judge’s mask and robe is slaughtering people in the town, starting with Allison’s (Naomi Grace) girlfriend, Melissa (Olivia Nikkanen—The Society). Is he just another wacky slasher, or something much more?

Founder’s Day is an almost halfway decent slasher movie that tries to be more than the usual slash fest, and it’s for that reason alone that I really wanted to like it. Naomi Grace (Gridiron Grid) is superb as Allison, who is hit with one tragedy after another but still resolutely tries to figure out who this killer is and why is he on such a murderous spree just before the election? William Nuss (Boy Meets World) is also very good as teacher and town pillar Mr. Jackson, who is respected by all. And the autumnal setting of the fictional town of Fairwood is picture perfect, with the fall colors looking so vibrant and spectacular that it almost makes me want to live there—but not with a mad dog killer running around loose, that's a deal breaker.

But where Founder’s Day flounders is the political drama, which gets so broad and overwrought at times that it’s in danger of becoming a slapstick comedy. The movie is very uneven, tonally. And the pacing gets very sluggish at times. It got so slow at one point that I started checking the time—which is not the best thing for a thriller film; it should keep you so on the edge of your seat that you forget what time it is. The filmmakers seemingly want Founder’s Day to be a relevant work that reflects these politically fractured times, but that aspect of it is often overshadowed by the lame “mad killer” plot, which keeps popping up in an “oh yeah, we forgot about this” manner.

Founder’s Day is clearly inspired by the Scream movies, but those movies—especially the first one directed by Wes Craven—were horror/slasher movies in their own right. The Scream films were scary on their own merits, while adding whatever commentary they had along with the scares. The result was, even if you couldn’t care less about the killer’s motivations, you could still enjoy the Scream films as thrillers. Founder’s Day lacks this. It relies too much on horror movie cliches almost as an afterthought, as something to feed the horror addicts so it can eagerly dive into its deep thoughts about the election process, without giving too much thought to what it really wants to say. When the evil mastermind’s scheme was finally revealed, it was so convoluted and dopey that it made the whole film feel like a waste of time. At least Founder's Day offers some really nice views of the Fall season. --SF

Founder's Day is available on streaming (where I saw it) and physical media.

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