Murder Party

Christopher S Hawley (Chris Sharp) finds an invitation to a "Murder Party" blowing along the footpath one Hallowe’en. Intrigued by the idea, he dresses up in a shoddy cardboard costume and heads off to the address, an abandoned warehouse in an isolated industrial area of New York, where he meets Sky (Skei Saulnier), Macon (Macon Blair), Paul (Paul Goldblatt), Lexi (Stacy Rock) and Bill (William Lacey); a radical collective of artists intent on murdering him as a work of art in order to impress Alexander (Alex Barnett) who is their potential benefactor.

This first feature from Jeremy Saulnier feels very much like a really good student film one which identifies its writer/director as someone to watch, in much the same way as 1974’s Dark Star announced the arrival of John Carpenter. It’s an ultra-low budget movie where almost every actor also has a credit on the production side of things, but it’s smart and clever with some very funny moments and a lot to say about the superficiality of the New York art scene, albeit that it’s method of expression is through schlock-horror.

Chris Sharp is terrific as the hapless victim who must overcome the odds if he’s to survive the night and whilst the rest of the cast are uneven in their performances, there are certainly standouts like Macon Blair as the unruly dope-head who steals the show as the wild werewolf man who manages to set himself on fire.

Despite its promise and general likeability, the film struggles to sustain itself even though it only runs 79 minutes. The long scene where the group inject truth serum and play a kind of truth-or-dare game really bogs the story down and it takes a long time to get to the inevitable, very funny, chase across rooftops to a more serious art party a couple of blocks away where chain saw murders and baseball bludgeoning can be truly appreciated as (excuse the pun) cutting edge art.  In the end, Murder Party feels like it might have been a great short film that’s been padded out to fill the feature film running time which is a shame because, as good as it is, it still ends up being a case of less would have been quite a lot more.

 

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