The Faces Beneath the Masks: The Making and Meaning of Founders Day
When Founders Day hit screens in early 2024, it arrived wrapped in the familiar colors of an American small-town slasher — but it hid something more under its blood-red surface. Directed by Erik Bloomquist, the film blended political satire with horror, creating a story that was both thrilling and eerily relevant. On one level, it was about a masked killer hunting victims in a tight-knit community. On another, it was about what happens when trust, politics, and history collide — when the ghosts of a town’s “founding” ideals come back for revenge.
Behind that sleek horror façade, though, was a surprisingly human story — one that lived in the cast’s real-world struggles, late-night shoots, personal discoveries, and the creative risks of a small team trying to push genre boundaries in a post-pandemic landscape.
A Town Built on Secrets
The story unfolds in a classic American setting — a quaint town gearing up for its annual Founders Day celebration. The air of pride and nostalgia quickly curdles when a series of gruesome murders begins to rock the community. The masked killer, dressed in a colonial outfit complete with a powdered wig and eerie mask, turns the town’s patriotic pageantry into a nightmare.
At the center of the chaos are teenagers, politicians, and police officers, each representing fragments of a divided America. Olivia Nikkanen’s character, Allison Chambers, becomes our emotional anchor — a young woman who starts as a bystander but grows into the film’s conscience. As the killings mount, she begins to question not just who the killer is, but what her town really stands for.
Underneath the suspense, Founders Day is a film about truth and image — about the stories we tell ourselves to feel safe. Every conversation about justice or leadership in the movie mirrors real debates in today’s world. Erik Bloomquist, who co-wrote the script with his brother Carson Bloomquist, said in interviews that the film was “born out of frustration” — with politics, with performative morality, and with how people weaponize their own history.
Olivia Nikkanen: From Quiet Reflection to Fearless Resolve
Olivia Nikkanen’s performance is one of Founders Day’s emotional cornerstones. Known for her work in The Society and Manifest, Nikkanen brought a quiet, internalized energy to the role of Allison — a girl torn between loyalty to her family and the uncomfortable truths unfolding around her.
Nikkanen spent weeks journaling in character, writing letters and diary entries as Allison to understand her internal fears. “I wanted to know what she was afraid of before the killings began,” she said in an interview. That level of emotional preparation grounded her in a story that could have easily slipped into caricature.
Off-screen, Nikkanen was juggling her own anxieties about career direction. Having grown up on the sets of TV dramas, she admitted to feeling typecast in “the thoughtful teenager” roles. Founders Day became a turning point — her first foray into leading a horror feature. The intensity of night shoots, fake blood, and stunt rehearsals tested her endurance, but she described it as “cathartic — like facing your worst fears, and realizing you can keep going.”
Devon Worley and the Dual Faces of Heroism
Opposite her, Devin Druid — best known for 13 Reasons Why — delivered a performance both vulnerable and unpredictable. As Adam, the boy next door with a murky past, Druid captured the generational disillusionment at the heart of the film. His portrayal of guilt and repression mirrored his own post-fame fatigue.
After his breakout in Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why, Druid had spoken openly about the mental strain of sudden attention and the need to “disappear for a while.” Founders Day marked his quiet return to form — smaller, rawer, and more personal. On set, he reportedly kept to himself between takes, often listening to somber instrumental music to stay in character.
Erik Bloomquist later revealed that Druid would improvise subtle gestures — a twitch, a glance — to hint at deeper trauma, enriching scenes that were never meant to carry emotional weight. It was Druid’s way of humanizing a genre role that could have been generic.
The Politics of Fear and Faith
While Founders Day thrives as a slasher, its pulse beats strongest in its political allegory. The mayor, played by William Russ, and other local figures constantly spin narratives about morality, safety, and legacy — echoes of the polarized rhetoric dominating modern society.
Bloomquist’s script never names parties or ideologies outright, but the undertones are sharp. The idea of “founding” becomes symbolic — about who gets to define a nation’s past, and who gets erased in the process. Fans online quickly picked up on this layer, calling it “Scream meets The Purge in small-town America.”
Some even drew parallels between the masked killer and online anonymity — how faceless rage drives public discourse today. Reddit threads and horror forums buzzed with theories about whether the killer was meant to symbolize systemic corruption, generational guilt, or social media witch-hunts.
Bloomquist, ever cryptic, responded in one Q&A by saying: “The killer is everyone’s reflection of guilt. That’s why the mask had to look almost human — but not quite.”
The Struggles Behind the Celebration
For a film set in the grandeur of a community festival, Founders Day was anything but easy to shoot. The cast and crew endured weeks of unpredictable weather while filming in Connecticut — where the small-town aesthetic came alive, but so did the logistical nightmares. Rain often disrupted outdoor scenes, and the production team had to rebuild set pieces multiple times.
The Bloomquist brothers, both veterans of indie filmmaking, relied heavily on local support. Town residents lent locations, costumes, and even extras for the Founders Day parade scenes. It was a community effort that mirrored the film’s themes of collective identity — but it also meant that mistakes or delays had a domino effect.
The actors often shot their emotional breakdowns late at night, sometimes after 14-hour days. Druid reportedly had to redo one of his most intense scenes — a bloody confrontation — four times because of lighting malfunctions. Instead of frustration, he turned it into fuel. “By the fourth take, I wasn’t acting angry anymore,” he said. “I was just angry. And that’s the take they used.”
The Quiet Bonds Between Screams
Despite the grim tone of the film, the atmosphere on set was deeply collaborative. Nikkanen and Druid often rehearsed together without cameras, reading dialogue backwards to find new emotional beats. The younger cast members spent downtime playing music and discussing horror classics — Halloween, Scream, The Faculty — that influenced their performances.
For the Bloomquist brothers, who had worked together on multiple projects, Founders Day was their most personal yet. “We wanted to make something fun, but honest,” Carson said. “We grew up in small towns where everyone knew everyone — and that can be comforting, or suffocating.”
That sentiment infused the film’s tone — the balance of warmth and menace, belonging and paranoia.
The Aftermath and the Audience
When Founders Day premiered at genre festivals, it received praise for its bold blend of slasher thrills and political subtext. Horror fans were drawn to its aesthetic — a mix of neon lighting, old-school gore, and theatrical costume design — while critics appreciated its attempt to say something larger about identity and accountability.
Box office numbers were modest, but word of mouth turned it into a cult conversation piece. On social media, fans dressed as the colonial-masked killer for Halloween, remixing the character into memes and cosplay videos. Some even noted the irony that a film about community guilt was, in itself, building a small but passionate community of horror lovers online.
For the actors, it was more than just another project. Founders Day became a space to rediscover artistic identity — to face creative fears as their characters faced literal ones. And for the Bloomquists, it reaffirmed their belief that independent cinema, when fueled by conviction and heart, can still carve through the noise.
In the end, Founders Day was never just about the killings — it was about exposure. Of secrets, systems, and self. And perhaps that’s why it lingers: because every town, every career, every person has their own version of a masked truth waiting to be unmasked.