One of my very favorite undistributed films of the year, Murder Party, indeed found a distributor with my new hero Magnolia Pictures. Released as the freshman title of the new brand, Magnet Films, this charming little indie hits stores this week and folks can take a gander at it for the first time without having to run on the festival circuit to catch it.

Murder Party is the story of a social misfit who finds an invitation on the ground to a Halloween party, and having nothing better to do, decides to crash it. Trouble is that it isn't really a party at all, but an elaborate trap set up by a group of art students under the watchful eye of a deranged benefactor offering a $300,000 grant to the artists who best capture art with the death of the unsuspecting guest. What follows is a brilliant, darkly comic evisceration of the New York art scene -- art snobs and rampant "scene setting" everywhere. And oh yeah, there's plenty of blood.

Murder Party is loads of fun, a quick race of a film that gets in and gets out without ever letting the joke get old. Chock-full of smart satire and thinly disguised movie references (without becoming an unending series of gags as is the style these days) while playing deftly to the tastes of an intelligent horror-loving audience, the film works on a number of levels, nailing each and every one. Words cannot express how much I enjoyed seeing this film come out of nowhere earlier this year.

But as with all things, nothing truly comes from nowhere. This instead was born of the collective known as The Lab of Madness, a group of advertising folks who had grown up making movies together as kids, stayed friends and reunited to make the film they always had talked about making together. Financed largely with the director Jeremy Saulnier's work on that infectious Maxwell House "Our House" commercial, this is a film that seems an attempt to save all of their souls before going down the road of advertising forever.

The proof is in the pudding. Their souls are saved. And the movie is a real treat for anyone who enjoys dark comedies or horror films. Murder Party releases Tuesday, October 16th.

C. Robert Cargill - - - Email Me
------------------------------------------
Austin-based Cargill, who not only loves but owns The Cutting Edge, writes on movies and DVD five times a week.

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us