Murder Party

I decided to watch this on Netflix earlier, and I'm glad I did. This movie was random, fun, quirky and bloody. Very intriguing for a low budget independent film.

The movie takes place on Halloween. It's about a guy named Chris Hawley, who happens to find an invitation to a 'Murder Party' while walking down the street. He dresses in a pretty bad cardboard costume and goes to the party. Pretty soon, he's tied up and all the hosts want to kill him. He sits there half the time, making weird faces while the party goers drink and do drugs. It's so interesting and random and quirky that I really enjoyed it. If you want a funny bloody Halloween flick, I would definitely recommend MURDER PARTY!!!

Accepting a strange party invitation, a middle-aged man finds that the event is really a ruse by a group of psychopaths intending to kill him only to continually thwart their attempts in the process and has to save himself from the remaining group finishing what they started.

This could've been quite the fun and enjoyable effort. What really tends to give this one a lot to work with is the exceptionally silly and goofy premise at the forefront of this one. The general concept of their ruse makes for a fun twist that's given right at the beginning of the film and the utterly cheesy premise has a lot of time to really work itself out with plenty of crazy encounters featuring him at the mercy of the group. The initial scenes of him mingling about the group where he's unaware of what they're going to do to him as they begin getting really obscure and off-the-wall makes for an overall stellar start to the film. As well, the way this quickly delves into the bonkers territory with their games and torture tactics which has a sense of unease in what's going on as they go through their routines and games with him which is where this one does slip somewhat but still has enough overt weirdness about it to really generate some fun times with their treatment of him setting up the film's best aspects in the final half. Consisting of a series of chases around not only their captive warehouse but also the neighboring art installation which ramps up the gore nicely but also has some thrilling action overall. Given that there's a lot of stellar gore and bloodshed, this here really makes for quite a fun time while it does have a few minor problems. The film's main issue is that it tends to downplay its stellar premise from the get- go with the idea of basically strapping him down in a chair for the main part of the film. He doesn't have much to do for almost nearly an hour into this and then has just slightly more to do than that in the overall finale so he really could've been written out of the film and not changed it much. That really does lower this one significantly since he doesn't do anything and has nothing to do with the story overall, rendering him somewhat useless than what should've been the case. As well, most of that is due to the film's other big issue with the really banal and overlong round of interviewing they go through which takes up so much time to accomplish nothing but irritation as nothing happens during these countless sessions and manages to drag this out with it's meandering and utterly unnecessary moments which are unneeded in the end. As well as the somewhat obvious low-budget nature of the film, these here are what really lower this one.

Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence and heavy drug use.

Really can't compliment this movie enough considering it's no doubt tight budget constraints. The last scrappy indie movie to come up with a smart concept and execute it this well was Blair Witch. Quite refreshing to see a low budget "genre" picture that's actually well-made and delivers the goods. Filmmakers were smart about locations (Brooklyn industrial areas) and using Halloween night in NYC as a backdrop. Very nicely shot, well-edited, but above all it's the acting that makes this movie stand out. Has both broad and subtle humor and it's a lot of fun. Expect creators behind this production to go on to do other bigger and better things.

Granted I gave it 10 stars, but I have no affiliation with this production. However I did go to UCLA Fine Art and WOW these guys hit the art scene on the belly button, jabbing Rabies needle right through, and into the inside of your spine! This film cracked me up, from beginning to end, it has a Jim Jarmusch feel to it in some spots, and lots of great indy, almost short film artsy fartsiness to it, but hits them all with great satire and loathing. I almost feel, like the adjoining film & art buildings at UCLA, that these guys film school was next to the euro hippy liberal art scene I was stuck in. And they fed off of and were tortured by no doubt. I can see now, how both artistes & film makers probably looked at each other like the grass is greener... only it's illegal and not bucolic.

I got that turn around pass at Blockbuster so I can rent dvds just as fast as I can watch them, thusly most dvds don't get past 7 minutes, but this will be one of those rare DVDs I will buy! And it will fit in with my fond memories of those KRAZY DAZE & KRAZY NIGHTS. Along with Mystery Train, Wild at Heart, the Moderns, School Daze, etc... it really hits a chord and made me crack up! The humor was awesome, biting, real, and so... well awesomely lame. Just like it was...is...shall ever be.

Great job guys, I hope you made a profit, to make your next.

Well done. Not just a horror movie that gets laughs from the horror gags. The humor was steady throughout, if you like dark comedy. I found the story to be refreshing as it doesn't "keyframe" its story with cliché. Whether it be Hollywood formula, cinematic guidelines, director's guild tribal knowledge, or actor's schizophrenia, this movie doesn't rely on these tried and true methods. It's shock value is in the twist of fate scenario(s), and the absurdity of human behavior.

The gore content was only at a level as what was necessary, not over the top. Some may disagree here, but think about all the zombie movies. Okay, the "art" room may have been a little graphic, emphasizing "little", but it was... "art", eh? Even the attempted gore had humorous tones. I didn't laugh out loud... but it was funny!

For those of you who like dark comedy, horror movies and action, and want something new and refreshing, watch Murder Party.

Oh, yeah, after watching it you'll learn that even a "cat" will understand that the master has had a really, really bad day.