Founders Day Elects to Be a Scattershot Political Holiday Slasher
Founders Day is a 2024 political slasher tailored for any country on the verge of another momentous presidential election (aw shoot, that’s us). The Bloomquist brothers, Erik and Carson, steep their holiday horror in manipulative election-day drama that finds provocation in the shattered remains of a fair two-party system. The Bloomquists follow in Eli Roth’s footsteps, matching Thanksgiving in its festive touches, but it’s also a muddy whodunit with too many possible cooks (killers) in the kitchen (slaughterhouse). Erik Bloomquist’s direction is composed, and his co-written screenplay with Carson plays on politician-slamming themes, yet Founders Day is still a second-tier slasher that crosses too many plotlines in an overly complicated small-town massacre.
An idyllic suburbia bubble bursts when a heated mayoral race is interrupted by an unknown murderer’s killing spree. High school student Allison Chambers (Naomi Grace) finds herself in the middle of everything when her girlfriend Melissa is presumed slain by the maniac killing townsfolk with a gavel-knife weapon. Melissa is the daughter of candidate Harold Faulkner (Jayce Bartok), who is still vying to prevent incumbent Blair Gladwell (Amy Hargreaves) from winning another term. Allison is busy trying to capture a psychopath while the adults bicker over public appeal, trading their children’s safety for a few points at the polls.
The “Founders Day” theme in Bloomquist’s slasher is worth a bit of giddiness, down to the villain’s springy colonial-era wig. Much like how Roth’s John Carver slices victims like they’re moist turkey breasts, Bloomquist’s killer dons a smirking red mask with an antique hairstyle that feeds into a black judge’s robe. Victims are bludgeoned and stabbed with the attention-getting gavel weapon, and painted sayings are left around town to keep both Democrats and Republicans guessing. Anxious residents are distracted by agendas and false leaders in ways that mirror our nation’s growing divide between red and blue states, prominently commenting on how the seediest intentions can thrive in a fractured political environment.