So it’s Halloween and the main character, Christopher, is a lonely dork who accidentally intercepts an invitation to a murder party. Yes, that’s exactly how the party’s billed and—surprise!—it’s literally a party in which the guest of honor is going to be murdered. (One of the party organizers: “The invitation says murder party. If some asshole is dumb enough to come here, then he deserves to die.”)
Christopher does what anyone would do upon receiving such an invitation: he crafts a knight costume out of cardboard and duct tape, bakes a loaf of pumpkin bread, and heads out to a scary part of town to find the address. Maybe someone smarter than Christopher would have at least mentioned to someone where he was going for the night, but that’s the thing: Christopher doesn’t have anybody to tell. His only friend is a cat who likes to hog the only chair in his apartment.
Christopher’s captors, as it turns out, are a collective of insufferable artist types who are vying to wow a twisted benefactor with their execution plans. Christopher himself spends most of the movie tied to an office chair. When he finally breaks free, his escape attempt is so pathetic, the others simply shrug and put him right back into his bindings.
No, this is not a scary horror film, but it’s a pretty funny one.
It’s unusual for me to work my through a director’s filmography backwards, but I’m glad I found my way to this one, which is Jeremy Saulnier’s first feature length film. Although I didn’t like it nearly as much as the director’s next two films, it’s an admirable first movie. (To be fair, I don’t like 90% of movies in general as much as I like Blue Ruin and Green Room, the latter of which is probably my favorite movie of the last five years or so.) You can tell Saulnier and friends adopted a “No money? No problem” attitude to make it, somehow without skimping on the impressive camera work.
I feel like I need to stress the following point: Murder Party is cheap… really cheap. If you’re the kind of person who’s turned off by cheap movies, give it a pass. If, on the other hand, you tend to enjoy the charm of ultra-low budget affairs like Video Violence and Blood Cult… well, you should probably know it’s not that cheap. Fortunately, the acting is a whole lot better, though a little uneven at times. Other than a couple of slow sections, which could stand some tighter editing, it’s a fun movie with some great energy.
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Friday the 13th: The Game came out today. If you didn’t catch it the first time around, here’s my write-up of every Jason movie ever made.
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