FOUNDERS DAY

Set in an unknown small town with a mayoral race quickly approaching, a masked killer goes on a killing spree, seemingly with no pattern to which victims are chosen. A film that as far as I'm concerned received next to no marketing push. I'd never even heard of the film or seen a trailer until I stumbled onto the AMC app to see what was playing and watched the trailer there. For a low budget film, it doesn't come across as such. I wasn't familiar with any of the actors but that's not always a bad thing. I chose to roll the dice on this since nothing else looked interesting to me that opened this weekend and for the most part, I'm glad I did. I enjoyed the film for the first three-quarters until the final reveal, which was predictable about halfway through. Up to that point, I thought it was a pretty solid independent horror film but then there was a "second ending" that tried to outsmart the audience and it soured the ending of the story for me. It tried to be too smart for its own good and I wasn't buying into it. Other than that, average all around and if you can get past the fact the killer uses a gavel (which is typically a small instrument) as a murder weapon, you'll still have a fun time. 5.5/10