Murder Party Movie Review

Murder Party (2007)

Rent Murder Party on Amazon Video
Written by: Jeremy Saulnier
Directed by: Jeremy Saulnier
Starring: Macon Blair, Chris Sharp, Kate Porterfield, Tess Porterfield Lovell
Rated: TV-MA
Watch the trailer

Plot
A random invitation to a Halloween party leads a man into the hands of a rogue collective intent on murdering him for the sake of their art, sparking a bloodbath of mishap, mayhem, and hilarity.

Verdict
It's one of the few dark comedies that's truly funny and clever, but the low budget is an obvious constraint. This is a really good low budget indie, but a bit lacking when compared to mainstream movies. The core premise and plot are really good, I just can't help but think the lack of funds stifled some of the ambition. The core writing is really good.
It depends.

Review
How far will you go for art? For many of the people depicted in the movie, nothing is off the table. This was the only Saulnier movie I haven't seen. It was fun to see his first film. This is raw, but you see some of the humor and style in his later films, Blue Ruin (my review) and Green Room (my review).

This is obviously a low budget indie. It starts when Christopher goes to a random party. Who goes to a random party though? Then again, maybe he figured it was a club party. Once Chris arrives, this jumps off in no time. I do wonder who these people expecting? Who was supposed to get the invitation?

Plenty of dark comedies are just dark. This really nails the comedy. It's dark and truly clever. This whole adventure starts because Chris's cat wouldn't get out of his chair. What a twist of fate.

 

There are more than a few plot twists and surprises. Chris has been captured by a group of artists and this makes fun of artists in general. Theses college age artists are willing to murder in the hopes of getting a grant from a wealthy art enthusiast. Of course none of them agree on how the 'art' should be done. The whole movie is a shrug while asking 'Art students, right?' The art patron's plan is tied to the belief that are is only valuable when the artist is dead.

When Chris escapes he runs into a closet. He sees a fire extinguisher and you figure that's his plan of escape, but the movie subverts that expectation. Chris exits, jukes, and runs. It's a small thing, but frequently movies fail to do anything new. Murder Party doesn't have that problem.
The first thing Chris does when he escapes again is to relieve himself.

With a budget this could have been even better, but as something self funded it's really impressive. This is a culmination of Saulnier and his childhood friend's video projects. In most of the self funded movies, the writing is the weak point. In this movie the writing is the strongest part. If you like Saulnier's movies, you're going to enjoy this.