Presents

Murder Party

Sometimes just one image from a movie can grab my attention.  In the case of the new indie movie, Murder Party, it's the image of the movie's 'hero', who dresses as a knight in shining cardboard completely covered in blood!

  Murder Party is a fairly simple story, a lonely guy, walking home from work, comes across an invitation to a party, a costumed, murder party.  After heading home and thinking about how sad his life is, he decides to dress up and head to the party.  After building a cardboard costume, off he goes.  When he arrives at the party (which is in a very bad part of town), he discovers that not only is it a small party, but he's the guest of honor.  He knocked unconscious, tied to a chair and realizes that everyone else at the party is part of a 'art collective', all are vying for a grant and, in order to prove their art is the best, they have to come up with the most artistic way of killing him!

The beauty of this movie is that it's horror/comedy that works on both levels.  The comedy is very insightful and funny and the horror is gory and gruesome...it's a near perfect mix.  The characters are all well drawn and the acting is very good, the real fun of the story is that most horror fans will really enjoy seeing these 'artsy' types killing in various horrific ways...I know I enjoyed it immensely.  Murder Party is fun on so many different levels that I'm not surprised that it never got picked up by a major studio, those guys don't have the imagination to understand a movie this simple, yet complex.  Whether you enjoy a cool horror movie, or a farcical comedy, you'll enjoy Murder Party...I'm waiting for my invitation now!  I'm giving Murder Party three and a half out of four cigars, because, while it's a fun movie, it's not perfect, it gets a bit tedious in the middle, once we know what's going on, it takes a little longer than it should to build to the climax that we know is coming.  But, despite it's imperfection, it's still light-years ahead of what Hollywood is doling out for us horror fans...can you say Prom Night?!?!  So, until next time, when I'll be fashioning my own cardboard costume, remember that the best movies are bad movies.