Well no slasher is ever going to be Scream and no slasher is going to be Halloween, there is always room for a slasher to enter the scene and make social commentary and be fun, entertaining, and deserve to be held in similar conversations. While Erik Bloomquist who directs and co-writes with his brother Carson Bloomquist, Founders Day it doesn’t reach the same magnitude of the original Halloween and Scream movies, but certainly stands up with more modern slashers such as Happy Death Day. The movie is going to slash its way into audiences and pack the gruesome shots it needs to satisfy that slashing craving.
The film is focused on two rivals being involved in a dead heat with each other over become the next mayor, consisting of Blair Gladwell (Amy Hargreaves) and her opponent, Harold Faulkner (Jayce Bartok). Neither of these candidates are good people, and often put their political aspirations first and foremost over their family. While the chaos doesn’t take the forefront immediately, it doesn’t take long for the killer to make their presence known. Melissa (Olivia Nikkanen) meets her girlfriend, Allison (Naomi Grace) on a bridge, and Allison gets trapped (by Melissa’s design) on the bridge, and the killer makes their glorious appearance and brutally and violently kills Melissa. The body’s start to pile up as Allison is determined to find out who killed her girlfriend and other citizens. The body count is high, the brutality is unmatched, and the killer is truly exciting, Founders Day offers a new modern slasher that delivers the goods and has some social commentary packed in it.
While breaking down the cast in Founders Day is tricky as it is such a massive and large cast, it is easy to say that Naomi Grace truly shines as she is one of our main protagonists in the film and gets her time to shine. But without the clever script created by the Bloomquists, this would all be for nothing as no one is truly safe in their world, and people you think matter simply don’t and they get killed off as easily as Drew Barrymore does in Scream. This truly leaves the audience in a state of suspense as no one can be marked safe from the masked killer.
Founders Day becomes the unexpected delight in the slasher genre that fans have been hoping for. Bringing a menacing killer to the forefront and having the unexpected twists and turns throughout the film, and managing to never truly guess who the killer is until revealed, it lets the audience get lost in this world of sheer chaos and terror. Founders Day continues to prove that the Bloomquists know how to craft horror and pack the terrors for the audience to truly revel in.
Founders Day screens 9:45PM, Friday, October 20 at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival! The Canadian Premiere with Director & writer in attendance! Tickets are available here: https://www.cineplex.com/movie/founders-day-tadff-2023
