In case you missed it … ‘Murder Party’

‘Murder Party’ looks fun, but does it hold up in the viewing? Hell, yeah! Written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier, and made in cooperation by the Lab of Madness, which is comprised of a handful of people who came up in the movie life together (indie, that is), this surprising little horror/comedy flaunts its legitimate horror-genre creds in your face, while maintaining an effective but low-key comedy underpinning.

Its Halloween and a lonely loser named Chris happens upon a mysterious invitation blowing along the street. The invite is to a “murder party” and, without any knowledge of the details, Chris decides to step out of character and into a home-made suit of armor costume made of cardboard boxes and duct tape. Chris sets out to attend this party instead of sitting at home, but he’ll end up wishing he’d been sitting at home all along. Once he arrives, he finds a group of eccentric artists sitting around bored in a warehouse, coincidentally surprised that Chris showed up at the party. They don’t waste time in tackling Chris and tying him up, explaining to Chris that he’s the entertainment. Actually, he’s an “art project” of the group’s leader Alexander, who wants to murder someone in the name of art. When Chris asks why they’re doing this, they simply refer to the letter and suggest that anyone dumb enough to show up to a “murder party” deserves to die. As the group of sorry artists goof off and bicker amongst themselves, Chris attempts to escape from his captors. Through a series of mishaps and sudden shifts unexpected changes in the plans, the tables quickly turn on exactly who the victims and killers really are.

‘Murder Party’ reminds me of ‘The Last Supper’ except instead of radical liberals inviting people with opposing viewpoints over for dinner and a murder, its pretentious artists inviting the socially inferior to a Halloween bash to end them all. The film also takes on a sort of ‘Breakfast Club’ click amidst its players confined to their location as they interact, except this is a more adult-themed, hardcore plot than being sentenced to Saturday detention in high school. Made on a decisively low budget, the film could have easily fallen into the trap of poor production quality and bad special effects. Instead, the film thrives from a young but talented crew working for free on a project they believed in and outstanding, carefully chosen special effects that only enhance the remainder of the movie. The humor, as I mentioned, is low-key and subtle, but dark and sinister as well. Some of the best humor can easily be missed if the proper attention is not being paid to the film. In one scene (one of the best SFX shots), Chris is dispatching one of his captors with a chainsaw and, as the bloody mess splatters all over Chris, he softly utters “ooh, gross.”

The characters are all a load of fun and each one of them has their own quirks. Another of my favorite bits is the wolfman special FX, which I will refrain from spoiling, but you’ll understand why this scene is so cool when you see the movie. Chris captors are all dressed in costume, my favorite being Lexi dressed as Pris from ‘Blade Runner’. As if the film itself wasn’t enough demented fun on its own, its highly recommended that you watch the featurette afterwards. Its lengthy, but worth every minute… especially if you’re a movie geek who loves the “how” of movies. It gives the audience a really thorough and interesting look at what it takes to make a small, indie horror movie with little money and a short-handed crew.