The intended satire [is] feeble, while the relatively straightforward horror aspects register just middling effectiveness in a standard slasher vein.

A couple of pedal-to-the-floor melodramatic twists suggest that “Founders Days” might’ve been a bolder or just meaner genre movie, but its toothless satire, like its timid horror drama, sadly doesn’t cut it.

The checklist of Eighties slasher cliches here is insufferably long.

Founders Day is like Thanksgiving’s quieter, more polite younger brother but takes enough decent stabs at the genre to ensure it’s worth your vote -- for at least one term.