Before
he wowed everyone with Green Room, Jeremy Saulnier made this surprising and fun
horror flick. It starts off with a very
Carpenter vibe (especially during the opening scenes of kids trick-or-treating),
before turning into something wholly unique and fresh. It’s truly the work of a gifted filmmaker who
is having a blast springing surprises and twists on his audience every chance he
gets.
A
likeable nerd (Chris Sharp) is content on spending Halloween alone with his
cat. He changes his plans when he finds
an invitation to a “murder party” on the street. He then makes a costume out of cardboard and
shows up to an abandoned warehouse where a group of weirdoes in costumes kidnap
him, tie him up, and inform him that they will kill him at the stroke of midnight.
Murder
Party starts off like gangbusters and Saulnier rarely takes his foot of the gas.
It’s a thin premise, but the running
time is only 79 minutes long. Saulnier’s obviously smart enough to know when to quit and
gets as much out of the (mostly) single setting as possible. Even in the claustrophobic location, Saulnier is
economical enough to make the production feel much bigger, and his deft style
keeps you on your toes.
Once
the axes fly and chainsaws start revving, it’s a gory good time, but even some
of the stalling tactics (like the game of “Extreme Truth or Dare”) are clever
and fun. The last act, which takes place
outside of the warehouse location is like going down a rabbit hole of
nightmarish lunacy. Saulnier also makes a handful of funny jabs at the hipster art scene during this
section of the film, most of which manage to score a bull’s eye.
As
good as a debut as this was, Saulnier amazingly just got better.
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