It sucks when Halloween falls early in the week. The spookiest night of the year and you have to wake up for work early the next day. Extracurriculars, obligations, and all the regular schedules of autumn life get in the way of releasing our purest macabre selves.
While we lament, we make the best of it. And that probably means digging into some good scary movies between handfuls of the best of all candy, Whoppers. The ascent of streaming services sucks in some ways, like that it’s getting close to the price of paying for cable. But the competition has led to some studios digging deep into their catalogs, where there are some gems waiting to be consumed.
One movie that you shouldn’t let pass this Halloween is Murder Party. This 2007 indie film by Jeremy Saulnier (who also directed Green Room) with a relatively unknown cast punches way above its weight with so much goofy bloodshed and influencer mockery. Best, it clocks in at 80 minutes, perfect for comedy horror and such a breath of fresh air compared to the lingering blue farts of a lot of current movies.
The setup is absurd. Sad-sack Christopher (Chris Sharp) opens an errant invitation he finds on the ground while walking home on Halloween. He already has plans, namely some rented VHS movies and a candy corn binge. But the emptiness of his life, the obstinance of his cat, and the hopefulness of the invitation — one that literally says, “Murder Party, Come Alone” — are too much. Christopher makes himself a costume, some pumpkin bread as a gift for his unknown hosts, and heads into the city for the promised festivities.
The hosts end up being a collective of visual artists who are competing with each other for a grant. Each is in costume (pulling references from Blade Runner or The Warriors) and has a particular vision for the way Christopher will meet his demise. Oh yes, the artists will come up with creative, interpretative ways to kill Christopher. He was, after all, dumb enough to come to something called a Murder Party.
Fortunately for Christopher, the artists are about as competent at murder as they are at art. As the collision of these artistic visions plays out, mostly around a terrified and progressively more blood-soaked Christopher, the weakness of the competitive art grant concept comes into focus — with burnings, stabbings, disembowelments, and chainsaw accidents. There was not a budget for CGI for the movie, so it’s all done with quality authentic gore.
