#StacyRock

[doomonfilm]

Thoughts : Murder Party (2007)

Blue Ruin was my introduction to Jeremy Saulnier and Macon Blair, and it eventually led to my discovery of Saulnier’s appropriately titled clusterfuck trilogy.  Most of my friends, even those not aware of the unofficial trilogy, are big on Green Room, but I figured I should go backwards prior to moving forward.  Luckily, Netflix heard my cries with their recent addition of the first film of the trilogy, Murder Party.

Christopher (Chris Sharp) is a New York-based loner who spends his days issuing parking tickets.  While walking home on Halloween, he comes across an invitation blowing in the wind to a Murder Party.  With nowhere to go and nobody to go with, Christopher decides to attend.  Upon arrival, however, he immediately realizes things are awry.  Paul (Paul Goldblatt), Sky (Skei Saulnier), Lexi (Stacy Rock) and Bill (William Lacey) all indicate heavily they are wanting to murder Christopher, only for the stakes to rise when Macon (Macon Blair) attempts to attack him with an axe.  The group manages to capture and subdue Christopher (who happened to bring pumpkin bread with raisins) while they attempt to hold their excitement at the arrival of Alexander (Sandy Barnett), an art investor promising a grant that will afford one of the artists/party attendees a chance to improve their lot in life.  Sky (who happens to be allergic to preservatives) eats some of Christopher’s pumpkin bread, and in the midst of her allergic reaction a fall on a sharp object kills her.  The group manages to hide the body just as Alexander arrives with Zycho (Bill Tangradi), his drug and pierogi dealer.  With the arrival of Alexander, the clock is put on Christopher’s life while the group indulges in Halloween mischief.

Tonally, this film is well produced and executed.  The loner nature of Christopher makes him prime fodder to play Murder Party victim.  As he states himself, the insignificance of his death would not make waves in society, and nobody would be likely to recognize he was missing.  The fact that the artists are so determined to go through with killing him proves how self-centered they were, as the fact of whether their victim would be missed or not means nothing to them as a collective or on a solo basis.  Even when Alexander’s facade faded, the artists could only see things through the lens of how it affected them.

On a personal level, the costuming and the artistic disciplines of each character worked extremely well in tandem : Bill’s combination of Baseball Fury and painter, with his slow and methodical periods of isolation and painting eventually catching up to everyone in a furious blast... Macon’s wolfman / performance artist parallel shows a man obsessed with a force beyond his control, and his final moments force him to deal with a horrible transformation... the rest of the characters share this in regards to their costuming and choice of artistic expression.  Things are heightened when Alexander introduces truth serum into the mix (deceptively in the case of himself), as this opportunity affords each character to give a Cliff Notes style representation of their character.

The series of events (especially the deaths) really bring the ‘dark’ out of this film’s dark comedy designation.  Christopher’s life, when removed from the microscope we view it under, is pretty bleak.  The ruse that Alexander permeates on the artistic community is so blatantly false that it exposes the entire community by proxy for their shallow nature.  The series of deaths that occur in this film will go down in my personal records as some of the most jarring, a trait that Saulnier continues throughout the clusterfuck trilogy.

Chris Sharp brings a shock to his character that pulls him through the events of the movie like a prisoner trapped in a body scheduled for torture, to a very effective degree.  Sandy Barnett and his over the top pompous nature sells the Alexander character fully, making his later reveal powerful.  Paul Goldblatt and his constant frustrations make his presence as constant catalyst for things to move from bad to worse pitch perfect.  Stacy Rock’s portrayal of Lexi adds extremely mischievous fuel to the dumpster fire that is Murder Party.  Macon Blair is wonderfully unhinged throughout the film.  William Lacey plays his character with a simmering, smoldering fire waiting for the right reason to burn out of control.  Skei Saulnier’s light role helped the breakneck adjustment in the film play in a way the audience would go along with.

Halloween will be here sooner than later.  Maybe I should find a place to screen this film, and find a companion film to go with it.

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