Founder's Day



Where do lonely men go at night? And who do they go to? With their backpacks and everything?

I have noticed that many of them attend Tuesday nights at Regal.

I have noticed because I have become one of them.

Perhaps if we had someone to go home to at the end of the day, we wouldn't be spending our nights seeing FOUNDER'S DAY.

Anywho.

I messaged with Ben throughout the day about seeing a movie. He was interested - but he was less than interested in seeing FOUNDER's DAY, a slasher movie, and another reason to exhaust any remaining/unsued IP based on a holiday (will need to check on the status of a possible BOXING DAY movie).

We exchanged few words over text through the afternoon over what movies are out, and where to see it - there is still Emma Stone’s apparently very good movie out, still, and Godzilla, if we went to Union Square, but I want to see things that are coming out the week of. Any justification to see FOUNDER'S DAY at the Delancey theater - it's simply preference.

FOUNDER'S DAY had one showtime of 10:30 PM, and the less Ben wanted to see it, the more I was interested in seeing it, alone. I am gravitated sometimes to doing things like this by myself. I am mildly alarmed by how much I prefer to be alone sometimes. I do socialize with people pretty often, so I won’t call myself an introvert. But I believe if I was stranded on a deserted island, and I had to pick one other person, I would just kill myself.

I bought a ticket using the Regal mobile app for 10:30 PM - the ticket is 8 dollars, thanks to Regal Tuesday. I have spent 32 dollars this month on movies, which is a good deal - but I do think I need to consider getting Regal Unlimited, to save ten dollars per month. It pays for itself in two visits, according to the app.

Plus, I saw that I would be able to get a small popcorn with my reward points. Yay.

I walked around the Lower East Side for several hours, talking with my friend Will on the phone, and listening to hard metal music until the movie. I ate a large amount of trail mix, the kind you can find at the deli that come in translucent plastic boxes, with cool names like BEAUTIFUL NUT MIX. Dinner and a movie.



My motivation slowly deteriorated as the night went on, knowing I'd have to be in the theater until like 12:30. All this to watch what is clearly a bad movie. I used to have a higher tolerance for this kind of stuff, like when Netflix still did overnight mailorder DVD's. Now, though, it's a specific kind of torture, that only a sad man with a backpack could put himself through.

Like watching a movie called FOUNDER'S DAY in January.

To preface, I have never met someone who celebrated this holiday. For those at home - it’s to celebrate the Declaration of Independence. That isn’t brought up much in the film; I'm sure it happens at least once, but I don't recall. I was hoping for something interesting to happen to the point that maybe I ceased to notice these parts.

FOUNDER’S DAY is a slasher movie that takes place during FOUNDER’S DAY in the quiet New England town of Fairwood, I think. Over the course of a couple days, people are found murdered, unfortunately due to a murderer of sorts. - It becomes a horror-ish who-dun-it, reminding me of something like MY BLOODY VALENTINE. Either the original or the shitty 2009 remake is worth watching over this, FYI.

The murderer rocks a ghoul-ish red mask, a long black robe, and a powdered wig. The weapon of choice is one of those judge-gavel things, which is used to strike the victim, but then generally a knife is brought out to end things, which renders the judge-gavel thing kind of pointless, if only for some kind of symbolic something-or-rather. Maybe it's about colonialism or something like that. If the weapon isn't effective, tho, how can we expect the metaphor to be???

With every death, the murderer (or murderers?!?!) leaves behind nursery rhyme-like clues painted on the walls. I don’t know what it means, and it doesn’t really showcase them in a way that seems to further a storyline. One of the police-type people concludes that it based on these clues, this could only be the work of a serial killer. OK then.

This stirs some kind of small town political discord, splitting the population in two different ways, although what the debate is, I have no idea. There are themes here that I think are supposed to be some kind of response to something, but there isn't really a central debate here about anything. I guess it is that murderers are bad, after all.

The murders begin to pile up. I'm not sure how large the town is, but it feels tiny, so that must feel like a noticable drop in population. Yet it seems like there is one police officer, and one commissioner to investigate (commissioner is played by Catherine Curtin, from ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK!!! Probably the only factoid about this movie).

The main characters we follow are some young-adults who are in high school, mostly - why they are attending in the first days of August are beyond me - I guess hybrid learning has changed things around some.

Most of the cast is unlikeable, which I like to think at this point I can tell when this is intentional. I mean, this thing is cynically written, but in a boring way. There are themes of corrupt politics - again, kind of - and it isn’t mean spirited - at least "mean spirited" implies something is interesting enough to invoke some kind of feeling, which this couldn’t possibly do.

Founder’s Day, the holiday, takes place in August, BTW. I assume this movie does too, but there’s something glaringly un-August about it. It feels very... Fall-y. The beest slasher movies have an autumn aspect or color palette to it, but... none of the wardrobe here resembles late summer. Flannels and beanies in CT in August? Could have inserted a theme about global warming, while they were at it.

And these seasonal issues are micro in comparison to the writing, which feels like if some tertiary-based “creatives” who took theater classes in high school were given a task to write a slasher movie, and collectively they’ve all seen only the second half of SCREAM, read a synopsis of HALLOWEEN, and accidentally watched VALENTINE on cable TV twenty years ago.

There is a pointless VEEP element here as well, with an town election coming up, a wine-drunk town mayor, and a (I assume) right-wong dad who is running against her. The dad is supposed to MIDLY resemble Trump - welcome to 2024, I guess? But he looks more like Pete Holmes than anything.

Also, the mayor’s strictly-business assistant is played by Erik Bloomquist! It isn’t anyone you’re supposed to know, but he's the guy who directed this very film!!!

There is a political race, kind of, that furthers the plot, kind of. You’d assume by the name and trailer that there would be heavy political under - or even over - tone here, and there is - but it doesn’t come up often enough or take it self seriously to ever matter. Which could go either way for me. And if it were overly political, I’d be annoyed, I'm sure. I can be quick to dismiss something as PC/libtard-ed based on a trailer or promotional thing. Here, though, the issue is that the movie is not good or interesting, and nothing in it works, so any political stuff is like fifth on the pecking order of criticism here.

A character is bludgeoned with one of those election sign things that people but in their yard, and that's metaphorical for something, I bet.

The deaths are often played comedically like this, but not enough for it to be seen full on as a spoof or something. There are these funny montages interspersed with moody slo-mo shots and synth music, which hasn't been aesthetically interesting since maybe THE GUEST, or IT FOLLOWS. Feels like what I assume graphic designers listen to at coffee shops in sunny Los Angeles. Where do these bands come from? Are they new bands? It's like the car-commercial genre equivalent to this direct-to-Netflix style trash. I recall THE GUEST having Clan of Xymox on the soundtrack, which was cool then. I still blame DRIVE.

And the ending... AUGH!!! Anti-climactic and nonsensical. I hate to complain about the ending a movie like this... But this had me wanting to leave with ten minutes of film left. The who-dun-it is predictable, but the motive is the twist here - it makes so little sense that is becomes a twist in itself. God it just is such ugly, lazy, stupid-assed writing. Reeks of a crappy streaming service paycheck, but it miraculously made it to the big screen. How the hell???????

Founder's Day is just bad! And not in a fun way. It’s rated R, so at least there is cursing, almost one sex scene, and more on-screen kills than off, but even then it's same as you've seen a hundred times on every streaming service. If you're one of those people who cares about the deaths, you aren't going to find much interesting happening here. And why not get creative??? You have an R-rating, couldn't you afford to at least make something here a little more memorable? I hate to mention something like TERRORIZER which is just a stupid series of movies, with a corny following - but it fills in the parts that it's missing with memorable, horrendous kills.

What's the point, and I mean, EVER, in having one of those off-screen kills, where it jumps to the next scene??? So lazy. And so fucking pointless!!!

It belongs on Tubi or modern Netflix. You know this already. It’s only January, but I can’t imagine this will crawl out of the bottom of my 2024 list. Only see this if you have a Regal Unlimited pass and truly nothing else to do, and you’re near a Regal. Or if you're a single man with a backpack. I hate that I spent 8 dollars on this, which is enough for soup at B&H, or several kinds of bread and a coffee at Harper's Bread House.

Side Note: That head-to-the-side thing that killers do when they kill somebody is soooo corny. Like they stand over the body of a victim and cock their head to the side... This needs to be illegal. More illegal than murder even. I’m sure it was creepy when Michael Myers did it in the seventies, but it hasn't worked since! It's like an eerie toy piano as background sound, or a monster jumping at the screen. CHEESE BALL MOVE! No murderer would ever do this.

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