Transcript

Founder's Day · Citizen Frame

0:00
Music.
0:14
What the hell? Gee. Cripe, get up. Get up. Both of you. Jackson, it's a joke.
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Saturday, 9 a.m. Detention, one minute late and you're suspended.
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What? That's not fair. This isn't a democracy.
0:30
Get the fuck up and apologize to Allison.
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Blast off. Hey, everybody.
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Welcome back to another exciting episode of Halloween, a month and a half.
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We continue our little journey and we always like to pepper in a slasher because
0:50
we know what Kieran's favorite subgenre is romantic comedy oh yeah that's it fuck that,
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alright so I wanted to pick something that was a COVID child something that was filmed during COVID,
1:04
and kind of got lost in the shuffle I remember watching it a couple years back
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and I was like yeah I rather enjoyed this you have this you know founder's day
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come out around Thanksgiving time, like the movie Thanksgiving,
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not actual Thanksgiving, but it has a mass killer in it.
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It's got all my, you know, it's got everything I like and it's got gore.
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So I watched it and I really enjoyed it and I wanted to reintroduce it to all
1:26
you guys and see if you liked it.
1:29
I watched it again a couple times for the podcast this time.
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It doesn't hold up as well as I thought it did, but it still has some stuff
1:38
going for it as we talk Founders Day. Okay, okay.
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Okie dokie that's what you're at you don't shut your fucking mouth
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up through all the mad maxes all about fucking neighbors
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and fucking home and away but we talked we talked
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founder's day all i get is okie dokie well did you
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notice that one of the townsfolk actually whenever they're holding the town
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no i'm only joking i was i was waiting for that one so yeah so i wanted to kind
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of go into this one a bit i thought it was a little more clever this here's
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funny we like to do some research for some of the films that we, that we talk about,
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as you know, we're not all, we're not always geniuses.
2:16
We know everything. We do have the research stuff. Obviously.
2:21
Well, you do. I do. Well, most of it. All right. I keep you right along with your research.
2:28
So Father's Day was directed by a talented, young, talented,
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talented filmmaker, Eric Blumchrist. He's also one of them. No, Blumchrist.
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He's actually, he's actually an actor by trade.
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And then he does some directing. but this is
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kind of his bigger budget kind of i guess you
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can say otherwise he's a lot of shorts and some a
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little more minor independent stuff this does he's also very crowdfunded and
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i believe it was crowdfunded type it wasn't it wasn't well right i thought it
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was i thought that myself i looked it up and i couldn't find any research on
3:00
it i thought it was crowdfunded but there's another one that came out the same
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time that was crowdfunded but it wasn't this one yeah.
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As an actor, he's actually one of the best in it. He plays Oliver,
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the sidekick to the mirror. Yes.
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Yeah, he's one of those guys who directs an act. And he's got a,
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actually, he's not a cameo. It's a pretty big part.
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But he's got more street credit as an actor than he is as a director.
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So it shows here because, yeah, he's one of the better actors here.
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I think what we're going to talk about is I like the idea of it,
3:34
the concept of it, but seeing the twist at the end, had some,
3:39
yeah, we'll dive into it.
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Yeah, yeah, I pretty much think I know what you're going to say,
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and I think I'm going to agree because, yeah, I have quite a lot of issues,
3:47
but it's not all bad, I have to say.
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Yeah, so the one thing it has going for it, it's a political slasher.
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Very, those two words usually aren't, you know. It's satirical.
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Yeah, it's usually, these two words, political slasher, aren't usually used
4:03
in the same sentence. All right, so we got Alison, Adam, Mr.
4:07
Jackson, Miss Gladwell, the commissioner, Lily, Melissa and Harold,
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Faulkner, Thomas, Rob, Oliver, Deputy Adam, and we got Mr. Chambers, Britt, and Tyler.
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So they pretty much kind of went with the scream trope.
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Even the music had a very scream vibe to it. They've even got a stand-in for
4:29
Deputy Dewey, and there's even a scene at the start, well, towards the start,
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where it basically completely mirrors, you know, Billy and Stu messing about
4:39
in the school corridors with the— No, it's not actually Billy and Stu.
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It's an alert dipshit student in Scream who is joking around with the Scream outfit on.
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Yeah, you're talking about Britt and Tyler, the jokes-ers of the movie. Yes, the idiots.
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Well, they're all idiots, technically. But I actually like how they handle that
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scene. We'll dive into it.
4:58
But it opens up pretty much. You see some tension between a father.
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The father is Mr. Faulkner, and he's running for mayor.
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He's going up against a mayor who's obviously the current mayor, Mrs. Gladwell.
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And you can see some bickering and fighting going on.
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And so you know there's some hostility there. And this is where we meet Melissa.
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And we find out pretty quickly that Melissa is a lesbian.
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And she's dating quietly. Our lead, Allison. Yes.
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And we also meet Rob and Lily. And Rob is dating Lily, but Lily was actually
5:36
originally dating Adam, Melissa's brother.
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And Lily is now regretting dating Rob. We'll get a little further into that.
5:44
So what they try to do within the first 10 minutes, and they actually do it well.
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They're not trying to re-rent the wheel or anything.
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But you kind of know the character, the key characters pretty quick.
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And a good slasher film scream does it all the time you know the central characters
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pretty quick and it's simple,
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but the difference between scream and this film is the execution.
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Pardon the pun, but not necessarily execution, Melissa, Rob, Adam, and Lily.
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They don't have, they don't hold a candle to the team of scream.
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And what I mean by that, the acting is far superior. Yeah.
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And also the ones here, they've no real presence.
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I would say as well that while the script has some pretty decent ideas knocking apart.
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A lot of the dialogue that these younger characters are given is very flat and
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not so much wooden, but just quite uninteresting.
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And it doesn't, yeah. No, no, you're right. I mean, to piggyback on what you're
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saying, this is a political, it's a satire technically, satirical that is.
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And if these if they're rhyme and reason for why the killings are happening you figured their,
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their dialogue would be a little more impressive it doesn't
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jump off this it doesn't leap off the out of their mouths or leap off the screen
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and i'm obviously not off the page either it's just i think yes the acting's
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not great but you know it's a slicer come on you're not going to get great acting
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anyway but i think what and i and i get that i get that and i we always have that.
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Discussion yeah it gets away with it but i can't with this
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one because if you're going to start mimicking if you're
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going to start mimicking and weak of the audience and let
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them know hey we like scream and these other like i
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know what you like summers and screams and so forth hey you
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got to back it up and if you're
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also gonna do a political slasher the dialogue
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needs to be a little more adult and snappier and
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also funnier and quirkier you
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know and also you know with scream you've you
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know you've characters like randy you've stew the
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sort of and obviously the acting's a big part of them as
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well the performances by you know lillard and
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stuff and jamie kennedy and stuff where they're sort of
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they're unforgettable you know even courtney cox's gail weathers deputy do you
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and stuff this is just pale imitation of that sort of gang in a slicer film
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yeah it's missing that quick quick wit and clever banter and i think those those
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that sums it up pretty good quick wit and clever banter.
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Now, but again, it's like you said, it is a slasher. So, all right,
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you give me some killing.
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I'll be okay with it. The kills in the surface.
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Yes. The killings, they get away with it. We're going to jump in the beginning
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when Melissa asks Allison,
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do you love, she tells I love you and she can't say it yet because Allison is
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kind of teetering where she wants to go with her sex life, I guess you could
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say. Yeah. She's in that stage.
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And then obviously the headlights kick in on the bridge and Melissa's a little
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more aggressive than Allison as I just mentioned, especially about her feelings toward Allison.
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So you know she's going to be more of the confrontational one of them. Yes.
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So it is a nice little planting of the seed there.
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Now I might be grasping at straws. They probably didn't think I was,
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you know, I'm probably giving it more credit than what credit is due.
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But obviously Melissa then goes to the man who's kind of blinding,
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kind of spying on them with the big headlights. And she is killed by this man,
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this man in the mask, this Founder's Day mask, I guess you can see.
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It's a judge, is the costume.
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And he chucks her over the bridge.
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Now, I think a lot of people are catching the twist. I actually didn't.
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The only thing I thought of, something's not right here, but I didn't catch
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the twist and quite frankly, seeing it again.
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Obviously, I know the twist, seeing it again, but i want to i
10:00
want to hit myself in the face to saying i should have caught this well
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i mean i didn't quite catch it but i knew something was
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up with this opening scene and her killing the reason being after
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the credits um after after this sequence later or later on you find out the
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twist right but it was also like where's your body you know you don't see a
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body or a funeral or anything like like that there's a lot of plot holes here
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well no they they they they play that okay,
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and we'll get a little deeper there in a second, but.
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They do plant the seed a little bit and little things I never caught.
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Like when they're on that bridge and you take a lock and you put your,
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you lock it together and it's a symbol of your love.
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And what Melissa does is locks her to the bridge, Alison.
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So she can't really get away. So what she's about to witness,
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she kind of has to see there, witness it because she technically right now,
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she's trying to get away from the lock.
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So it takes her a while, but it forces her to witness
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the killing which she has to be there for so it
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is a nice planting the seed by melissa doing i get
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it but it does have flaws as well the plan which whenever we reveal the twist
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which is we're sort of pretty much suggested now anyway i do have i'm going
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to pick bits and pieces okay and that and that's fine when we get to the big
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finale i i get it but But the reason I only bring it up is because,
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again, well, they did plant the seed.
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Yes, it's a decent planting of the seed, but I don't think it's 100% pulled off.
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But like a lot of this film, there is a lot of decent stuff here,
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but it all boils down to execution and editing. There's poor editing here.
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And yeah, I think it's too long as well. It's like almost two hours.
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And this should have been just a much snappier, like 85 minutes or something like that.
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Yeah, it does drag a little bit. And a lot of the scenes seem repetitive. Yes.
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You got the town folk. They're all protesting, all six of them.
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And I do like the intro. After Allison does escape from that little lock,
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after Whitney sees Melissa's death, she runs into the town.
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These people are protesting. And she goes in the middle of these people who
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are picketing. Obviously, it's Founders Day weekend.
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And it's political time. and obviously you've got people on one side of the
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fence, the other side of the fence.
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So you've got this little mosh pit of anger and then she goes in the middle screaming.
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She just witnessed her friend or potential lover pretty much be killed and she
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looks up screaming and then that's where the titles start.
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I do like this whole introduction, which is the way most slasher films do.
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They'll give you a 15-minute intro and then throw the title.
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Yes, especially in the scream films. i would
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say that that scene where all the townsfolk all gather around
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her they i think overall this film massively misses
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a trick by not having the trope of
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the townsfolk turning on each other properly they
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do a bit but they don't go full on and i
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think they really miss a trick with that yes it's a
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trope it's a bit of a cliche it's done very well in the second rebooted halloween
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film from recent years Halloween Kills done very well I know a lot of people
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have criticised that film but I actually really liked it especially that aspect
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of it so I think they definitely missed the trick by not having the town full
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on go up against each other.
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You had to have that and that's a flaw in the film because it's Mr.
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Jackson's rhyme and reason.
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It's tough talking about this film guys while giving stuff away so you know.
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This will be spoiler filled.
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Yeah well I don't think they fucking care but Mr.
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Jackson is the perfect example who creepy poundland George Lucas yeah.
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Who? The teacher, Mr. Jackson. Mr. Jackson? He's a good actor.
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I like William Lewis. No, no, I'm just talking about the way he looks.
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He looks. Oh, I don't know. Well, he's gray hair and a beard.
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He looks a bit like Joe. He just reminded me of like a creepy George Lucas.
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When you get to the reveal, you needed more scenes with the town folk turning on each other.
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Maybe even getting a little, maybe a scene of the cops arresting these guys
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because the cops were involved.
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Yes. So you should have had a scene where the deputies arresting people for
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beating the shit out of each other.
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You needed some kind of political outrage going on here, and we got it by a
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couple of picketers, because what Mr.
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Jackson goes through and what he does to plan all this, it seems like you needed
14:35
a little more what was going on in the town.
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Was there misappropriate funds?
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Was there bribes going on? Well, there was. You needed more of this for his
14:45
rhyme and reason for what he does.
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Well, there was that stuff going on, but it's just never fully elaborated on.
14:49
And it boils down to the major problem I find with this film is the lack of
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tension and drama where the likes of Scream and such do have that.
15:02
Yeah, I mean, yeah. I mean, even when the killing really starts happening and
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it doesn't happen until about 35 minutes into it.
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So that's the problem you have. You have a slasher film.
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You supposedly see Melissa get it in the beginning. Then he got 35 more minutes
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until we see Lily get it in the theater, which I thought was clever.
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But the problem by this time, if you're going to spend 35 minutes and you need
15:27
a more political, I understand we're trying to, we understand that Gladwell
15:31
and Faulkner are assholes. Yes.
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The whole point is that there's no such thing as a decent politician.
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And actually they're right about that.
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Yeah. It's essentially saying that, you know, it doesn't matter which way you
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vote, you're still going to get an asshole.
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Which I would sort of, I've come as I've
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got older To realise very much From all
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sides of the political spectrum It doesn't matter who you vote for You're still
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going to get an asshole Who's going to promise you the world Before they get
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elected Then when they get elected It's back to the same old shit Back to normal
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And the people getting fucked over And all the rest That's good commentary But
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to don't elaborate on it enough.
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Yeah, they don't, and there's not enough planting of that seed to really,
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you know, all I saw was bickering between Gladwell and Faulkner,
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and after Melissa's missing, they never find her body.
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That was the whole point, so she was never really declared dead,
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and Faulkner is trying, you think at first, oh, you know, to Gladwell,
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you're using my daughter's missing as your blah, blah, campaign letter,
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but then he ends up doing the same thing.
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They're both just ugly human beings, but at the end of the day,
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it's just two political assholes and I get so many questions like Mr.
16:44
Jackson why didn't you just run yourself you're a light guy you would probably
16:49
got it ultimately it's the realization and the writing of the characters that's
16:55
the problem here because going back to Scream.
16:59
Brilliant characters totally memorable characters but
17:02
also characters you very much like
17:06
and empathize with so whenever i'll
17:09
give you an example scream 2 whenever randy gets it
17:12
in scream 2 you're fucking heartbroken and you
17:15
know what i mean it's no not randy anyone but randy you know
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and i think actually where it's craven at the time of
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its release received a lot of hate mail over that i mean it wouldn't go
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that far obviously but my point is with the
17:27
scream films you have these great characters memorable characters
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that you really like and sort of you know you're rooting for
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and that's actually one of the flaws of the newer scream films
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actually where they're nowhere were near as good as the original cast
17:39
but here i didn't either like
17:42
or give a shit about any of the characters not not one of them you know not
17:48
not enough yeah not enough where i look for them or actually give a shit whenever
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they die in fact whenever they do die i'm just hoping for a good creative death
17:57
scene for them at very least you know the compensation.
18:02
It's, yeah, the scene where Lily's dealing with, making it on with Rob,
18:06
who's, and then, but she wants Adam back.
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And so you're supposed to kind of feel sorry for her. She doesn't know where
18:12
her love wants to go. And she's trying to text him to get Adam back.
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And she's cleaning up the theater and you're supposed to feel sorry for her.
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And then, no, that's the whole point though. You're supposed to,
18:25
because she gets it quite brutally.
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And I love it when she gets it during, let's all go to the lobby.
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Let's all go. I loved that trailer when I was a kid in the movie theater.
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But as that trailer's playing, she gets maced in the eyes, breaks her knee cap,
18:38
then shatters her hand, and then cuts her throat. It's a brutal little death.
18:44
But again, you sort of went, oh, no, no, I kind of liked her.
18:48
You're like, I just want to see a good killing at this point.
18:50
Yeah, I was just indifferent.
18:51
It's not that I hated the characters. I was just indifferent to them,
18:55
especially her boyfriend, you know, that plebe who's supposed to be like Billy
18:59
Loomis. He's the Billy Loomis.
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He's the red herring Yeah obviously He had
19:07
red herring written all over him He's just an absolute
19:10
dipshit And there's a scene later
19:12
on Where the police are searching for him And this shows you
19:15
how badly edited And put together some
19:18
of this is Where he's literally hiding behind a
19:21
tree You know in the montage sequence I saw that And he's literally hiding behind
19:25
a tree And there's this massive search party for him And not one of them noticed
19:30
them Hiding behind a single tree Give me a break It's little details like this
19:35
that are important And I'm not a filmmaker You know But there's some positives here.
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Like The,
19:45
Tyler, you know, the, Tyler, the gang who, Britt and Tyler, they're always kind of the jokesters.
19:52
And they actually, you mentioned it, they dressed up like, you know,
19:56
in the costume and they pretend to kill one another or whatever.
19:59
He's the killer and he's, and he kills Britt and Allison, and Allison is, jumps in to save her.
20:07
And he, you know, he's going to, you know, it's faith. You know, it's set up.
20:11
They're just there to scare Allison. but then Mr. Jackson comes up and I like
20:15
the fact that he goes, get the fuck up and apologize to Allison.
20:19
I like that and that was showing that, I mean,
20:22
of all the characters, he's the most likable which is kind of,
20:27
I give it somewhat of a pass on that because the ending you kind of want him
20:32
to get away with it because you do like the character because he does have good
20:37
That scene is a total lift from Scream where the Fonz,
20:40
Henry Winkler gives the dipshits who do it and scream detention,
20:45
as well. Yeah.
20:47
I think he expels them, actually. Yeah. Yeah, he expels them.
20:51
But I just think the time of the incident, I thought was... I went with it.
20:57
I was okay with it. No, it does. It does have some positives here.
21:01
Lily's death. I didn't understand the... Harold's death's the best, I think.
21:05
I didn't... What was... London Bridge is falling down.
21:09
They had these iron bars will bend and break my fair lady
21:12
none of that even makes sense yeah yeah it was
21:14
based on the nursery rhyme yes falling down and then
21:17
you had roses red violets of blue was that
21:20
just none of it makes sense it was true it was just another sort of
21:24
quirkiness to the killer and a lot of it doesn't even make sense in terms of
21:27
did the killer really have time to like make all of these like letters and posters
21:33
and stuff it's just it's just added in it's thrown in and it's completely And
21:38
it doesn't work It doesn't make anything creepier,
21:42
It's just annoying.
21:44
I do like when Lily's still, before her death, she's like, oh,
21:51
God, I love Adam, but do I like Rob, right?
21:53
And Rob, through the whole fucking party scene, is right in the corner, right next to them.
21:57
And then Lily's like, oh, Adam, what's going on? I miss you, blah, blah, blah.
22:02
And Rob's in the corner, just sitting there drinking his vodka.
22:05
And then Adam chucks off and leaves. And Lily's still texting Adam as he walks out the fucking door.
22:12
And Rob goes, you're just a whore.
22:15
You're a fucking whore. Why don't you go to him and suck the sadness out?
22:19
Why don't you fuck him? Yeah.
22:20
And then the next scene, we're supposed to be like, yeah, go, go, Rob. You can make it.
22:24
Yeah, no, it's very uneven in terms of characterization. If you didn't even
22:30
call it characterization.
22:32
And I did quite like Melissa's brother.
22:36
He's quite a good character, and I thought it was a good sort of to have him
22:39
when he pops up as one of the killers.
22:43
Yeah. Yeah, he was always one of the guilty parties, supposed guilty parties,
22:47
the gunman going into a school in a TV series called 13 Reasons Why.
22:52
So he kind of plays the same character. He's decent in this.
22:56
I think he's one of the actually.
22:58
Yeah, he's playing when he plays the 13. Jackson, I think they're probably the two best characters.
23:03
Now, I do like when Britt and Tyler get it in the, and this is what it has going
23:11
for it. halfway through the film, these two get it.
23:14
Thank God for fuck's sake. They're an absolute tip. So annoying.
23:17
If I knew them in real life, you'd be tempted to kill them yourself. Oh, yeah.
23:24
But Allison tells her dad that I left something in my locker.
23:29
So she goes, but as they're being killed, she hears something,
23:32
obviously, and she goes, walks into the classroom, and there,
23:36
boom, the killer's exposed.
23:38
It's Adam, and he's writing on
23:41
the chalkboard a nursery rhyme reflecting what just
23:44
happened i think it was jack and jill yeah and he's
23:48
like oh this isn't what it looks like before it
23:51
isn't but yeah uh and then he
23:54
runs out and gets killed by the dad yeah
23:57
and a couple of people
24:00
actually get like like adam get killed by campaign
24:03
posters yes or campaign sticks maybe commentary posters
24:06
on yeah but yeah so he
24:09
gets it so i do like the fact okay there's another one
24:12
because you've pretty much given away the twist right there but now you know
24:16
there's you know something else is going on so we're looking for another killer
24:20
so instead of giving reveal all those two killers like they usually do in films
24:24
you reveal there's one killer who's already been caught and now there's another
24:28
one roaming which I kind of I did kind of like that something different at least,
24:32
I get that they were trying to do something different and in ways to do but
24:36
it's again back to the poor realization of it.
24:42
Yeah, yeah, but I'm entertained. I mean, I see this as better.
24:47
There's a lot of slasher films that come out.
24:49
So one of the reasons I picked it was it got like a 4 out of 4.4,
24:53
something like that IMBD will say.
24:55
And I don't get the hate. I mean, I understand. I think what we're talking about is pretty fair.
25:00
But at the same time, I'm going with it. It's got good gore.
25:03
It's got a couple of decent characters in it, and it's well shot. It's competent.
25:09
It has a decent mystery to it, you know, like a hoot on it. that's
25:12
quite decent you know because there was which is which is
25:15
pretty big for a murder mystery slasher film
25:18
and to be fair completely for throughout it
25:21
i was trying to guess who was the killer you know at first i thought it was
25:24
harold you know melissa's dad and then it was sort of oh it might be such and
25:28
such melissa was one of my suspects as well i must admit and that's me not trying
25:32
to be a smarter but she was one of several suspects i had so i mean there is i just,
25:39
i wouldn't say it makes me sad but it just a bit
25:42
a bit disappointed that it wasn't realized better
25:45
overall because there is some good ideas on the table here
25:48
yeah yeah and that's the rhyme and reason why they're doing this but when they
25:56
do put in some good banter so you've got the horrible mayor gladwell and she's
26:02
giving this big speech blah blah blah we're gonna we're gonna And she's using
26:07
Melissa's disappearance,
26:08
you know, to, you know, to get elected.
26:12
And she's giving the speech and the cops go, oh, well, you just found her daughter's
26:16
body. But they don't say that. They saw it done by whispers,
26:19
which I actually kind of liked.
26:20
It goes from the cop to the deputy, the deputy to Oliver, her campaign manager.
26:26
And then the campaign manager walks over to her and she's giving the speech,
26:29
whispers her in the ear, we need to, we need to end this. There's been a body.
26:33
And you can hear her going, who was it? and then he cut to, she's looking in
26:36
the trash because that's where she was throwing in the bin and she's screaming. Yes.
26:41
And I do like the commissioner, the sheriff, I guess you could say, and she's screaming.
26:46
She goes, oh, well, that's a positive identification.
26:50
I found that commissioner character quite annoying where they're trying to throw
26:55
in like Columbo-isms and stuff.
26:57
Yeah, that's what she, she was your Dewey. Yes.
27:01
Really? Yeah, even though there's like another, like a Dewey there,
27:05
basically a copy and paste Dewey there as well. But he's more of a straight lay.
27:09
He's more... Well, he's more competent than Dewey. Competent. Yes.
27:13
But she was just, you know, the commissioner character, I just thought she was a bit...
27:18
It just it didn't work for me you know but you
27:21
know i did quite like the montage scene even
27:25
though we'll have dipshit hiding behind a tree and nobody sees him
27:27
and stuff it's i mean it's i wasn't like emotionally
27:31
sort of you know broken bad you know because it's
27:34
meant to be sort of emotionally sort of powerful and stuff you
27:37
know it didn't it didn't really blow me away in that sense but it's
27:41
it's it works to a certain extent the i
27:46
think the scene which is probably the biggest the
27:49
biggest moment and maybe i was a little harsh on it with the give us a more
27:54
political agenda is the office sequence the showdown between gladwell and faulkner
27:59
in her office it's actually not a bad scene where you really see these people
28:05
as scumbags yeah especially with gladwell.
28:09
When Gladwell makes a comment, nothing gets you sympathy like a dead kid.
28:17
And then he starts, Faulkner even talks about, listen, I don't care about Melissa.
28:24
She chose her path, but not Adam. Why him? Because at this point,
28:28
he thinks that Gladwell's involved.
28:31
And they start going at each other's throats. And then obviously the killer shows up.
28:35
And I do like the deaths. I do love the fact he just jabs her right in the throat
28:39
with the, uh, it looks like it's a letter opener or a pen.
28:43
And then he, well, he uses the, the letter opener then to slice the shit out of Harold.
28:48
Yeah, he just fucking goes to town on him. But whenever we find out who the
28:53
killer is, that actually makes a lot of sense and context because it was basically Melissa.
28:59
So it is, and he had rejected her because she was gay. She was a lesbian.
29:03
Even the very first scene where he- That's why he gets the most brutal. Exactly.
29:08
So that makes sense that he gets it the most brutal, slicing the shit out of his face.
29:13
But yeah, so again, that's another aspect that works.
29:18
I'll give it to them. See, that's what I'm saying. As you talk about it,
29:22
like I kind of put down like, well, I need a more political blah, blah. Well, they did.
29:26
Technically, they do it in that scene, how evil these two people are.
29:29
So as I break it down, it does plant the seed quite well, I guess,
29:35
on what's going on in the town.
29:38
I just think for an hour and 50 minutes of a slasher, if you're not going to
29:42
give us more killing, give us this before the killing starts. It makes more sense.
29:47
You know more killing more humor more quirky characters this is where it falls down basically.
29:54
Attention obviously tension there's a lack of tension i
29:57
i just a complete lack of tension i just didn't car yeah no no there's there's
30:02
there's no gas moments or anything like that there this is not what this film
30:07
does and that's the problem yeah that's not that's that and that's the director
30:10
kind of learning his trade and and and that's fine teething era you know he's gonna have,
30:16
what do you call it, teething mistakes as he's,
30:20
growing into it, but you know, like the scene with Rob and Allison's at the
30:23
bridge and the deputy shows up and he handcuffs Rob.
30:28
Rob gets the gun and shoots the deputy and the deputy's bleeding and he kind
30:32
of I actually kind of felt sorry
30:33
for the deputy because at this point you didn't know who was involved.
30:36
I'm not stupid. I knew right away that the deputy was involved but.
30:42
It's, and then Allison won't release rob because rob
30:46
looks guilty because he just killed the deputy and
30:49
she runs away and heads to her house i'll
30:52
give this film credit where for it having the balls to kill off seemingly important
30:57
characters such as the two politicians you know although melissa is obviously
31:03
you know it's a rug pull but it does have it's quite brave and sort of killing
31:08
off quite big characters in.
31:11
Yeah, it does. I do feel though, I think they almost do it.
31:19
Well, no, they get it pretty quickly. They get it near the end,
31:22
really, when you think about it.
31:24
They do that with Lily, for instance. Here's this girl who's trying to get Adam back.
31:28
So they try to play that whole, oh, this girl made a mistake.
31:32
She wants him back, blah, blah.
31:34
Then they'll hopefully rectify it. And then she's the first one to actually get it.
31:37
But in all fairness they're they're really
31:40
just here to get slaughtered yeah i'm surprised
31:44
they killed both candidates at the same time because if
31:48
you keep one up and running then that's going
31:51
to be your go-to who did it and also yeah you're pantomime villain
31:54
as well you know where it's like the
31:56
one you love to hate you said earlier on that they're evil
31:59
people i wouldn't quite call them evil i just call them totally self-absorbed selfish
32:04
pricks like most politicians i think
32:07
I think that's to me the definition of evil I don't like politicians Well I'm
32:11
not a fan myself But yeah But yeah Melissa is a lie I do like lines she says
32:18
She looks at her and she reveals it's her And Alice stares at her And Melissa
32:24
just goes take a second I know it's a lot.
32:27
I do like that line There's some lines that could have worked a lot better here
32:31
Including that one A lot of it's down to the delivery You know,
32:36
Alison, her acting is, she's not a very good leading lady.
32:41
Yeah. Well, Alison, she's a blind actress. She was wrong for the part. But Melissa...
32:48
Needed a little more craze out of it. Yes. She's giving you this only time.
32:53
Yeah, she's giving you this monologue and it should have been crazy.
32:58
It should have been crazy.
32:59
Totally, totally. Her stammering, give her something where she's just kind of losing the plot a bit.
33:04
But she's just so smooth. It's underplayed. Reserved. You know,
33:07
I don't buy her as a psychotic.
33:10
You know, I just buy her as a nice girl with, I don't know, teenage drama in her life.
33:15
You know, I don't buy her as like, say somebody like stew
33:18
macker and i've always loved
33:21
you sydney you know you know what totally
33:25
so memorable you know we're still talking about it 30 years later
33:28
well this almost makes me feel
33:31
that they should have reversed it where adam fakes his death and melissa and
33:38
the allison thing keep that going that's the way it should have been rather
33:43
than because i think adam david drew i I think the guy who plays him is the,
33:48
who could, could have pulled off because the kid, the character is kind of reserved and quiet. Yes.
33:54
He's a better actor. And if he comes back. Well, I think. And yeah, probably.
33:57
And then when he does is revealed, he could play, he could pull off psychotic better. I think.
34:04
Yeah. Yeah. She's just not, I just don't buy it. Whenever I was watching it,
34:08
I just did not buy it her as a psychotic.
34:11
Where was the screaming over the top of this? You know?
34:15
The darkly humorous aspect of it He didn't have any of that.
34:21
Then you had Mr. Jackson revealed as he's the puppeteer.
34:26
And he lets these two girls fight, which he needs to. I figure out. We figure out why.
34:31
Because he actually, Mr. Jackson pretty much tries to kill Melissa.
34:34
He's orchestrated it all.
34:36
Yeah. He wants her dead. He wants Allison to be on his team.
34:40
So when he tries to kill Melissa, obviously Melissa still survives and her and Allison fight.
34:47
And it's great throat cutting.
34:50
I like a good throw cutting but I just thought,
34:54
the fighting was like it was again
34:57
lack of tension you know it was just like and also
35:01
I just didn't care I was just like hurry up and get this over and
35:03
done with you know I wasn't on the edge of my seat
35:06
let's just say I just didn't care I
35:09
would say that the twist of Mr
35:12
Jackson orchestrating it all was good and
35:16
interesting you know the whole thing is basically whether
35:19
you agree with it or not how basically the
35:23
town is basically an allegory for america
35:26
or any country you know i mean any country in the
35:28
world has but you know it has its history steeped in
35:31
blood and stuff so there's that allegory there but again the realization there
35:37
was no real i mean yes it's done subtly that sort of allegory it isn't sort
35:41
of thrown in your face but again it boils down to the characters and stuff where
35:47
I just, I was just not invested in them.
35:50
Ultimately, any of them really. Yes, some are better than others, but yeah.
35:56
Well, he tells her that one of the reasons he wanted her because of her papers,
36:01
as he writes, and he gives her the paper, the lines of succession on her last
36:05
papers that she wrote. And I could be wrong.
36:08
She says it's because the office of,
36:12
if the office of mayor, while they are mayor becomes vacant whether it's death
36:18
or whatever happens the longest current resident takes over automatically yes
36:23
that's right it's like but not resident it's like the member of the council,
36:28
Okay, I missed that point. I knew it was the longest 10 years or something.
36:32
You know the way they would have a council, a sitting council of the hierarchy of a town?
36:39
That's what I'm taking from it. I don't know the full ins and outs of it,
36:42
of small-town American politics.
36:44
But yeah, it's basically, apparently they had something written in their sort
36:48
of Bill of Rights, where it says the longest-serving member of the council would then take over.
36:53
Yeah, it was the tricentrial they were talking about or something like that.
36:56
I can't remember what they were talking about.
36:57
It's in there. But here's what I think is funny.
37:00
So you have the deputy of the police. You've got Adam. You've got Melissa.
37:06
You've got Oliver, who's the campaign manager, and you have Jackson himself.
37:13
Well, you're a smart man, Jackson. You couldn't get these people just to go,
37:16
hey, why don't you come and do a campaign with me?
37:20
You pretty much have half the town in your pocket. No, no, we're deciding, let's kill them.
37:25
It's a completely convoluted way of being elected. let's just say yeah completely
37:30
but then yeah maybe he didn't have faith that he would be popular,
37:35
enough to win an election who knows i
37:39
do like the final sort of twist
37:42
in a way where it's basically where
37:45
there's one there is someone allison for example especially knows exactly what's
37:51
happened but she plays along and i think that's a commentary how people will
37:56
know that their country or whatever has a dark past but they'll say nothing
38:01
and play along and just get on with things in the meantime anyway.
38:05
What's the form? They're almost hypocrites. Yes, absolutely.
38:08
Yeah, that's what it's saying.
38:10
Yeah, so yeah, you're talking about it's one year later and they kind of play on that.
38:15
Jackson's now the mayor and Allison's running for junior president in whatever,
38:19
I think school or college, wherever she's at.
38:21
But I do like when he's giving his speech, her speech, Mary Images,
38:26
his. Because they're the same.
38:27
She's become, and it's actually a dark twist for her character,
38:30
where it's for her own self-serving reasons, and for him, well,
38:35
he was self-serving in the first place,
38:37
but it's how politics corrupts, and how she's become corrupted,
38:42
and she's prepared to sort of brush the past, and all the darkness of the past,
38:47
and the killings, and the blood, onto the carpet,
38:50
and everything goes back to normal, and people get on with their lives,
38:53
and maybe their lives do improve in certain bread and butter,
38:56
ways but for their own self-serving reasons they'll play the game the game of politics.
39:02
Yeah, but so as we talk about it in the beginning of the podcast,
39:05
after reviewing it a couple more times, I was like, oh, maybe I'm not into it as much.
39:10
Now the movie's got flaws, like I said, but as talking about it and when I reveal
39:14
more that I might have missed or forgot about, I do think it's a lot more clever
39:20
than we're giving it credit for,
39:22
but what hurts it is there's no tension and the characters are quite bland. I agree.
39:27
And I think it all just boils down
39:30
to other aspects like writing again
39:34
with the writings there's some very very cool and
39:37
interesting ideas going on in the script but things
39:41
like the dialogue is just uninteresting the characters are uninteresting but
39:46
there is some good stuff that and maybe in a better pair of hands would have
39:52
been much more competent eli roth would have done a much better job not even
39:56
ways craven someone like Eli Roth would have made this much more interesting,
40:00
with Thanksgiving, at least you had characters that were a bit larger than life,
40:04
you know, like the dick and stuff you know, like the jock and all that there
40:08
Yeah, but you gotta realize too, this is kind of a big outing for this director,
40:13
so I'm gonna give them a pass on that, just because like I said,
40:16
you know, he's learning as it goes, and it could be budgetary,
40:20
what he had to work with, what the casting is he can give him,
40:23
there's so many different things, but I think what he had to work with it kind
40:26
of worked a little bit, so I'd like to see what he is next.
40:30
You know the way on Amazon, I went to watch this on Amazon, I would usually rent.
40:34
But I actually bought this because I like to support indie filmmakers,
40:39
indie writers, and all that sort of thing.
40:41
So, while I maybe wouldn't watch it again, I don't regret Bannett,
40:47
let's just say. And that's not meant to sound condescending.
40:50
I just, you know, I get that there's some good stuff going on here.
40:54
And, you know, good ideas, let's just say. But.
40:57
Realization in a lot of aspects, including editing, is poor.
41:03
Yeah, and that's fair enough. But again, for a slasher film,
41:08
this isn't as half bad as what people think it is.
41:11
I mean, for people to hate on it, you know, but that's the internet for you,
41:14
you know, these days. Yeah, exactly.
41:17
It's manufactured hate, you know. Yeah.
41:22
Well, there you go, guys. Give it a check out, Founder's Day.
41:26
It's an afternoon, you check it out. You guys like slasher fans,
41:30
you'll enjoy it. I can't see a knot, really.
41:32
But there you have it. Next up, we're finally going to get to Salem's Lot. Da-da-da-da.
41:39
We are going to have that little discussion next week.
41:43
And then we got the two Beetlejuices. And then we're going to end with Pete
41:48
Atkins' Whistmaster Special.
41:50
And I'll give you more details as that gets closer to the date and time.
41:56
Anything you need to add, Trevor? everyone all good thank you very much yeah
42:00
we're gonna wrap this one up you take care of yourselves,
42:04
and that's all i have to say because this took way too long to talk about founder's
42:09
day 45 fucking minutes i think it's my intros they're usually like 25 minutes,
42:16
all right guys we're wrapping this one up take care of yourselves be good.
42:22
Music.