Shudder Saturday: Founders Day (2023)

Here is another horror movie from brothers Erik and Carson Bloomquist (the former directing, both of the having written the screenplay together), and I think it's clear that they are only able to deliver movies that hang around the level of average. Look, that's more than I could do, and it's more than a lot of other people could manage, but it's a shame that nothing in their filmography shows a spark of something better.

Founders Day is a slasher movie. It's set in a small town as a local election looms, which means many of the residents are already viewing one another with some suspicion and bitterness as they clash over priorities for the community. One young woman (Allison, played by Naomi Grace) is traumatised by a murder that she witnesses, but she may feel worse before the final scenes, especially when it becomes obvious that the killer may have a special plan for her.

There are very small germs of decent ideas here, but none of them are developed in a way that makes them feel worthwhile. People becoming increasingly divided in this age of polarising political stances, politicians making use of any tragedy to spin their image into a more positive one, and a very Hot Fuzz narrative that shows how things are being done for the greater good ("the greater good"). These could have made for a decent little slasher, especially if there was a good sense of fun alongside the commentary, but it falls flat. The Bloomquists don't have any sharpness to their writing, and they also forget to make the kills fun and inventive enough to distract from weaknesses elsewhere.

Grace is pretty good in her role, but she's one of very few highlights. Olivia Nikkanen isn't bad either. Catherine Curtin and Emilia McCarthy are both underused, despite doing solid work, but I can't say I was very impressed by Devin Druid, William Russ, Amy Hargreaves, Jayce Nartok, Andrew Stewart-Jones, or anyone else. Not that they were bad (okay, maybe some of them were bad), but they're unable to do anything to improve upon dialogue that feels one foot away from tame TV movie stuff.

I admire the fact that people tried to make use of another calendar date for some masked killer shenanigans, and a good enough concept can keep me easily amused if enough little touches are sprinkled throughout to tie in with the central theme and iconography, but Founders Day probably wasn't the best event to try and liven up with a killing spree. Others might have done something better with it, but we're left with this . . . and this is about as much fun as standing in a polling booth and reading the list of candidates before finally using your pencil to mark down who is getting your vote. Okay, it's a BIT more fun than that, but not by much.

4/10

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She Came From The Woods (2022)

Although I had heard some horror fans say good things about She Came From The Woods, I was hesitant to check it out because I wasn’t a big fan of the last horror movie from this director-writer combo. That film was Ten Minutes To Midnight, and if you liked that a lot more than I did then you may be much more interested in the career paths of the people who made this.

The story is enjoyably simplistic. It’s a simple campfire tale, people trying to scare one another at the end of the summer camp season, but everyone is unpleasantly surprised when the telling of that tale actually summons up the vengeful spirit of a killer. People start to get slashed up in a variety of ways, the camp kids (who were all due to be taken home) turn into evil accomplices, and the only solution could be to try righting a historic wrong.

Director Erik Bloomquist, who also co-wrote the screenplay once again with his brother, Carson Bloomquist, shows that he is capable of delivering some straightforward slasher fare in a way that feels affectionate without drowning the storyline and characters under layers of references and in-jokes. This is surprisingly uninterested in being cool or ironic for most of the runtime. Unfortunately, it’s also uninterested in being all that memorable. I watched this a few days ago and can hardly tell you anything about the characters and the main sequence of events. There were some decent kills, with a fun and bloody finale, but nothing else really stands out.

That is especially true of the younger cast members, although I will say right now that nobody is bad here. They just don’t get to really stand out from one another, despite a few of them playing a slasher movie archetype. Clare Foley and Spencer List are good enough to have you hoping they survive, but I enjoyed scenes involving Cara Buono a bit more, even while she was just playing a standard “concerned mother”, and any scenes making use of the great William Sadler were the best of all . . . more due to him being the great William Sadler than anything in the script.

There are one or two decent songs on the soundtrack, and the technical side of things is all well and good (some of the production design is genuinely impressive when setting up a slasher movie moment tableaux), but the Bloomquist brothers still have a way to go before they fully realise their potential. They need to get better at the writing, finding a way to complement their obvious love and knowledge of the horror genre with an energy and creativity that will seriously improve the final product, but this is an enjoyable step up from their last outing, and I hold out hope that their next feature will be another marked improvement.

6/10

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Prime Time: Ten Minutes To Midnight (2021)

A horror film starring Caroline Williams, an actress arguably best known for her role as a potential final girl/DJ in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, Ten Minutes To Midnight has her playing Amy Marlowe, a DJ about to slog through her usual late-night slot with the threat of impending forced retirement looming over her head. As well as the stress of the situation, which includes spending time with a young woman who may end up being her replacement (Sienna, played by Nicole Kang), Amy has some issues stemming from the fact that she appears to have been bitten by a bat on the way in for her shift. The weather outside is bad enough that the people in the station cannot leave the station, and Amy finds her mental state deteriorating.

I was wary of this film before I even pressed play. Although not too familiar with Williams, I knew that her name was being used as the main selling point. And I figured that once again putting her in the role of a DJ was an easy way to get some brownie points from horror fans, meaning there was a chance of less effort being made in other departments.

I was right.

This is a mess, albeit an occasionally entertaining one. The first half mixes some potential vampire shenanigans with the constant stress piled on the lead character, who knows her days employed at the station are numbered. Then things change, and not for the better, leaving you with a whole film that doesn’t succeed in being either scary, gory, funny, or insightful.

Directed by Erik Bloomquist, who also co-wrote the script with his brother Carson Bloomquist, this is a film that feels like the people making it may have had more fun than anyone who ends up watching it. It’s disappointingly repetitive and spirals towards a very weak conclusion, but some of the cast do enough to stop it from being as bad as it otherwise could have been.

Williams is okay in her role, at least able to put on a fantastic “fuck you” pose to those around her that she can’t even bother feigning niceness to. Kang is a highlight, acting sweet and nice until things take a severe turn. You also get some fun turns from William Youmans, Nicholas Tucci, and Adam Weppler.

The camera generally points in the right direction, and other technical aspects are competent enough, but nothing is done that helps to elevate the material. That could have been a case of making more of the radio station setting, or it could have been achieved by streamlining the concept away from the surreal turn taken in the third act.

If you have a chance to see this one, my advice is to “turn the dial”.

3/10

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