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KM: I can definitely sense the love of the 90s teen horror cycle in Founders Day, and how that’s kind of a big influence. Were there – other than Scream – other inspirations or ideas? Especially in terms of the killer design and the costume with this Sock and Buskin mask, I think it’s very cool.
CM: I’d love to talk about the design, but I’ll mention quickly, another influence that I like to say is
Jaws, actually; the first act, like will they or will or will they not open the beaches? What should they do, and the effect that has on Amity as a whole is really interesting. So kind of transferring that into a slasher framework was fun and central to this movie.
Regarding the mask and that whole design, when we were first conceiving this, I don’t think it was anything near what it ended up becoming. There wasn’t initially this political component to the movie, it was more about this town festival. But when it became that, a few things clicked into place. We wanted it to have this sort of aged leather feel; it’s a tragedy mask, so it’s half smiling, half frowning,"
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EB: And I really liked that mask because there’s this idea of duality and two sides, and the theatricality of it, if you want to play like the political theater of it all and making statements and things like that.
CB: We wanted to use red as a central color for this, with how striking it is. It’s also political in a way, it gives that sort of edge, so once we kind of landed on the red, we kind of felt like it really became something. It was just very intentional but not gimmicky, something kind of unique to it, and the wig was the final touch. And it also aided in that almost historical undertone through the movie."
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EB: That’s when that’s when I watched
Scream, you know? See it before you should see it, it’ll be super fun. Thematically – and there are pieces of this that probably, to an extent, if we go too deep might peel back too many layers – but I think ultimately, we just wanted to demonstrate the kind of arbitrariness to some of what happens and how personal politics can can go into this tug of war and kind of infect other people and then how leadership positions can be tainted by that.
CB: We have this political framework, but a lot of it’s used to just explore certain social tendencies. It’s a social thriller, I think, predominantly, with how we’re trying to explore people through that political framework. We don’t want to dive too deeply, but we also want it to be sort of attainable and understandable, and something that someone who’s young could comprehend and kind of see what we’re saying. But then someone who’s seen this kind of stuff before can really have a certain appreciation of.
EB: I’ve seen a couple of things where people are saying that the film never actually takes a side, one candidate or the other, or expands on what their platform is. But I disagree, I think that’s exactly the statement; that there are a lot of empty platitudes and a lot of posturing and buzzwords, and that’s kind of the statement we’re making is that these two people are kind of one of the same for us, because they are. They’re both guilty of what they’re accusing the other of doing, and I think that that’s very fun to play with. That’s why I like their rivalry so much."
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I always look sideways at a movie that cites Scream as an inspiration. But it's not looking too hot. You could always make the argument with assholes that if a slasher movie set on Founders Day or whatever is okay then ergo a Juneteenth slasher is equally fine.