Gavel-To-Gavel Carnage
My thoughts on Founders Day, The Teachers’ Lounge and Which Brings Me to You
For those of you who were fearful that the success of Eli Roth’s surprisingly effective Thanksgiving would usher in a new wave of homages to 80s-era slasher films, a period of filmmaking that tends to be revered almost entirely by those who weren’t around to experience its cinematic clumsiness first-hand, you will be relieved to know that Founders Day, the new horror-comedy hybrid from Erik Blomquist is so terrible that it could quite possibly single-handedly bring this potential renaissance to a screeching halt. The film is set in a typical all-American small town that is about to celebrate its tricentennial and see the culmination of a particularly fraught mayoral election in which the supporters of Blair Gladwell (Amy Hargreaves), the incumbent running a stay-the-course campaign, and Harold Faulkner (Jayce Barton), the loudmouth businessman preaching the need for change, are constantly at each others throats. Tensions get dialed up even higher when a mysterious masked and robed figure begins brutally murdering people, beginning with Faulkner’s outspoken lesbian daughter (Olivia Nikkanen), with the aid of a lethally equipped judge’s gavel. As the body count continues to rise and the police continue to be stymied, teenager Allison (Naomi Grace), who was the first victim’s girlfriend and witnessed that killing, finds herself investigating on her own and even when it appears that the case has been wrapped up, the blood continues to flow as the run-up to the election continues.
Founders Days wants to work as both a straight-up horror film and as a cutting political satire but botches both approaches so badly that the only question most viewers will have is which of the two it handles more incompetently. As a horror film, it seems as if Blomquist is determined to cram as many cliches and conventions of the genre as he can—the closest thing to a fresh twist is having the role of the Final Girl represented by a Black lesbian—and then make them as tedious as possible. The characters run the gamut from the dull to the actively annoying, the suspense scenes, while bloody enough, are staged and executed in the laziest and most perfunctory of ways and there is so little at stake here in terms of the story (outside of our heroine, hardly anyone in the film seems to even register that there is a killer in their midst, even when the killings strike close to home for some) that by the time of the big final reel unmasking (a revelation that will come as little surprise to anyone with even a minor working knowledge in slasher cinema). The political satire, on the other hand, is so ineptly handled that you will find yourself longing for the comparatively subtle and nuanced likes of the Purge franchise or The Hunt. Instead of trying to make any specific point about the current political landscape, Blomquist employs a commitment-free everyone’s-an-asshole take that deals only in the broadest generalities, offers no cogent commentary beyond the most obvious stuff about the perils of political division and culminates in a finale that is almost insulting in its bland cynicism. The idea of combining horror and politics is not necessarily a bad one, I suppose, but Founders Day does it so bad that most moviegoers will want to abstain from this stab at it.
Now if you want a jolt of real and recognizable tension—the kind of gut-churning that junk like Founders Day never even begins to approximate—keep a look out for The Teacher’s Lounge, a quietly intense German film from Ilker Catak that starts off like a normal slice-of-life drama about the goings-on at typical German junior high school and slowly builds into an at-times brilliant exercise in creating and maintaining suspense. The school at its center has seen a rash of thefts that have left members of the staff flummoxed and willing to go to extreme lengths to figure out which of the students is responsible. Idealistic seventh-grade teacher Carla (Leonie Benesch) is appalled at the ways that some of her colleagues are trampling on the rights of the kids that she clearly cares for and is always reminding her charges that they do not have to answer the increasingly accusatory questions they are being asked. Upset when one student is unfairly accused in front of everyone, she sets up a minor-league sting operation by leaving her wallet in her jacket next to her computer with the laptop camera engaged. When she returns, her money is missing and she has video of it being taken but this revelation, rather than bringing the situation to a conclusion, only makes things worse as her discovery has unintended consequences that make the entire school a powder keg of suspicion, cruelty, rebellion and potential violence.
As the film begins, you may find yourself thinking that this is going to be nothing more than another tale of a noble teacher sticking up for her noble-but-misunderstood students—sort of a modern-day take on the likes of Up the Down Staircase. After a little while, it becomes clear that Catak is not interested in that kind of story nor does he want to use the school setting as some kind of turgid metaphor for the ills of contemporary society. Instead, it becomes a piercing observation of what happens when an idealistic individual goes up against a well-meaning but rigidly inflexible school system as the seemingly simple notion of doing the right thing ends up having nasty repercussions. Although the film is swiftly paced, Catak nevertheless takes the time for all the key emotional beats to register—anyone who has ever found themselves being unfairly accused of something as a kid will recognize the sense of shame, anger and powerlessness will instantly identify with certain moments here. The film also smartly avoids painting Carla as a simplistic do-gooder—she clearly has the interests of her students at heart but her need to demonstrate this without thinking of the potential blowback proves to be just as damaging as the initial baseless accusations—and Benesch is excellent throughout as she charts the wringer that she inadvertently puts anyone through. The Teacher’s Lounge is grim (though not without certain moments of dark humor) and the tensions that it brings up may be overwhelming to some but this film (which is Germany’s entry in this year’s International Film Oscar race) is an unusually effective drama that will no doubt have viewers talking about the issues that it raises long after the metaphorical final bell has rung.
Based on the 2005 novel by Steve Almond and Julianna Baggot, Which Brings Me to You kicks off at a wedding where two guests, Will (Nat Wolff) and Jane (Lucy Hale), meet for the first time and almost instantly head to the coat closet for an assignation that just as quickly goes sideways. Despite that initial embarrassment, the two still find themselves sharing the same wavelength and they elect to spend the rest of the very long day together trading tales of their respective past romantic disasters, running the gamut from the humorous to the heartbreaking, as they try to come to terms with their own uneven pasts and the possibility of some kind of future together. At first glance, it seems as if Peter Hutchings is going to go through the usual rom-com tropes but the situations soon take a darker turn that may put off some viewers expecting the normal hijinks. However, while the concept is relatively intriguing, the execution proves to be quite unwieldy as it bounces from one vignette to the next without ever quite bringing the various episodes into a satisfying whole—every time you get interested in one tale, you get yanked into another one. Another problem with the film is that the film’s odd structure means that the one of its strongest elements—the undeniable chemistry between the two leads—is too often pushed to the sides as the character regale each other and us with their tales of woe. Which Brings Me to You at least tries to bring something different to the rom-com genre—and it is certainly preferable to the loathsome likes of Anyone but You—but in the end, anyone in the mood to se a film in which two people meet and spend the ensuing day and night getting to know each other via an extended talk-a-thon is advised to give this one a pass and stick with another viewing of Before Sunrise instead.