Murder Party (2007)

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

After having seen Blue Ruin and Green Room I was very curious to check out Jeremy Saulnier's first film, Murder Party. The plot sounded interesting and Blue Ruin was excellent while Green Room is one of my favorites of 2016. However, I felt Murder Party was lacking. With this being his first movie and since he was very clearly working with a limited budget, certain things such as low production values can be excused. That aside the movie really didn't really do much to be scary, thrilling, or even funny. The movie mostly consists of our protagonist being strapped to a chair while all the other characters don't really do much of anything that's interesting or fun to watch. From then, nothing really happens up until the film's bloody finale. Murder Party has a lot in common with Green Room. Both movies consist of our main characters getting thrown into life and death situations that take place in one singular location. Green Room just delivers on the thrills while Murder Party does not. Though watching this movie after having seen his other two films, it was interesting to see how he's grown as a filmmaker. I look forward to more from Jeremy Saulnier.

I had been promised a 'spoofy', gory parody. It was just really boring all the freaking time. It didn't make me laugh, once. This was supposed to be a comedy, right?I had the misfortune of being recommended to watch this atrocity last Halloween, so I did. I sat through the whole thing feeling unclean the whole way through. It was very unpleasant to look at, not in a dark or creepy kind of way like in movies such as The Omen (1976) or The Fly, both of which are great and disturbing.The main character was a bore, just someone leading a quiet life and then put into a strange situation. But unlike following him through a journey like in something such as God Bless America (2011) and understanding him going psychotic, we just watch him witness the horrors that unfold throughout the night. The other characters I barely remember. I guess they just start murdering each other and we're supposed to root for certain ones, but you won't care because they're all equally annoying throughout. So when they get killed off in (I must admit) some well thought out fashion, you will not have been invested enough in them to feel anything.The 'plot' is about as bland as they get; guy gets abducted and then watches his captors argue for a while trying to escape a couple times. Eventually everyone tries to kill each other, resulting in our main character facing off against one guy. Then he kills him; the end. I might have made a couple of mistakes in this synopsis, but whatever. It's not like there was that much of it to begin with.So to summarise in short; don't watch. In long; really don't watch this turd.

I think it's so great how much fun this movie is even though it's mostly just basically people sitting around one big room talking, whenever you get that in a movie I think it speaks volumes for the basic quality. It's not one of those stupid obnoxious horror comedies like Scary Movie, it's more of a dry wit, without being cynical, slightly edgy type of one. It's not meant to be scary, I'm not sure exactly what you'd call this movie's brand of humour, but whatever it was I loved it. The movie's got good music. There's not much, but what there is is solemn and funky and effectively used. It's rather short at 1 hour and 20 mins, but I think this is one of those cases where that was a good thing. As much as I enjoyed this flick, I thought it was very well balanced just the way it was, any longer and I think it could have started to become a bit of a drag. As it was, it never dragged once for me. I loved the misfit group of would-be killer artists who couldn't do anything right, they were such a bunch of lovably inept losers! They all talked a lot but they were all full of it! I loved the effeminate art grant guy, he was funny and so cute! It made me laugh when he When he told Christopher S Hawley that he was old, and when he threatened to send his dog to the glue factory. I also like to write s**t down to say later, there's nothing wrong with it! I liked the heavyset guy who wore a wolf mask and then later becomes a real monster when he accidentally sets himself on fire! I love the sequence where all the whacked out artists(including Chris) take questionable substances and "open up" to each other. It's so cosy and mellowed out, man! Particularly funny to me is when everybody is bickering over what to order and the feisty girl says quail. It's very obvious that the quietest one, Bill, is going to eventually do something crazy, and you know it's gonna be good! The (kind of)main character Chris is just an ordinary nerdish boring type of guy. For me he was a little too boring to like or root for, but I guess he does grow on you towards the end. Hell of a crappy costume though! And what's not to get about the quick scene near the beginning when he's on the train with the black guy rapping aggressively at him? It's a pretty standard hilarious sight gag of a big black guy scaring a nerdy little white guy wearing glasses, it's just a fun little visual joke. I found it very cute when everyone's pepped up on something and telling stupid puns and he takes it upon himself to join in and say a few exceptionally bad one's and bonds with them a little. That's sweet! The movie's big finale is for me it's best part, it's so funny, insane, frantic and energetic. The tone of the movie really changes when it gets to the last 24 minutes and the John Carpenter(esc) music starts playing and Billy finally goes nuts, murders everyone in sight and chases poor Chris like a demented baseball playing maniac screaming "everybody dies!" It's actually quite a scary and frenzied attack, at odds with the movie's non-harsh and completely non-sickening tone. I love how you see Billy so frenzied at the beginning, swinging his axe again and again, and then you see that he's actually whacking on a birthday cake. It's funny when he hits the lead performance art guy with his axe, and the man looks at himself for a few seconds before reacting. Like he's so artsy he can't quite compute it! And then when everyone except him has died, poor Chris finally goes home, exhausted and victorious, and his cat now obeys him. I love the thing with the cat that's a bit of a wraparound for the movie. It's just so precious and funny, If nothing else, this guy has at least earned the respect of his cat! Class. This movie is not mind blowing stuff, but it is definitely fun, very funny, and it sure felt original to me, I think it deserves to be considered a new Halloween themed classic in the future, for this neat movie is a wonderfully fun little watch around Halloween time. Very cool flick, it's grown on me more each time I've seen it.

Despite the silly name, Murder Party is a surprisingly well-made movie that takes itself seriously only in the bits where it mattered. The director described it as "Breakfast Club but with chainsaws and hard drugs" but I felt like it was more Tarantino meets Kevin Smith and they get together and double team Sam Raimi. Which I guess kinda gets the same effect. But still.The plot is a stereotypically simple one: Lonely guy finds an invite to a "murder party" (see what they did there?) and decides to attend out of boredom (and because his cat, Sir Lancelot, refuses to get out of his chair). This plunges him into a nightmare world where dimwitted hipster art-major-flunkies vie desperately for the attention their friend Alexander through MurderArt™ (i.e. they plan to kill the main character for the sake of art) and also take entirely too many drugs while doing it. Meanwhile, our hero, who's almost as idiotic as his captors, is sitting in his goofy-ass cardboard knight costume and continually screwing up his escape plans with sheer incompetence.Most of the movie feels like a parody of horror movies, because it constantly takes horror stereotypes and either tips them on their heads or transforms them into Shaun-of-the-Dead-esque gags. Throughout, there are some truly hilarious points that really display the talents of both the writers and the actors.But when it comes time for the movie to actually be a legitimate horror movie, it really does hunker down and deliver in an incredibly satisfying way. And it's not just the gore/special effects, which are by themselves -very- impressive. When a character's face gets burnt off, the makeup is so good I honestly found it very difficult not to look away.But it's got the suspense aspect as well. You're really terrified for the main character by the end of it, because the events are set up so well, and the way they unfold keeps you glued to the screen until the very end.On top of all this, the movie is beautifully shot. The director has a real eye for what makes an aesthetically pleasing shot, whether it's of the hero making pumpkin bread or somebody's head being ripped apart with a chainsaw. So kudos to that, too.Now, I purposefully left out plot-related spoilers because I really, truly want everyone and anyone who reads this to go out and see this film. I only knocked it down a star because the actors were admittedly not fantastic and there were a couple low-budget effects that offset the relatively high quality demonstrated through the rest of the movie that left a slightly bad taste in my mouth, but they were easily overlooked.Also, if you get a chance, get your hands on a version with the special features and watch the Making Of short. The story behind this movie is genuinely heart-warming and inspirational, especially to anyone who's even vaguely considering film-making as a career.If you like senseless gore, making fun of pretentious hipsters, watching people take hard drugs, or seeing a middle aged man running around in a stupid looking cardboard costume, this movie is for you.