‘Do a film review’ he said, ‘It will be fun’ he said. So here was I waiting for my Premier tickets to the next Hollywood blockbuster. Instead I get a little known film on DVD and after a bit of reluctance I finally get around to making my debut review.
I will be honest, I was expecting to hate this film, for the first 10-15 minutes I watched with raised eye-brows and the occasional sigh but the middle part of the film is quite enjoyable and there are actually a good bit of interaction between the actors. Unfortunately it slips back into a predictable gore-fest towards the end. What is for sure is that this film has it’s tongue firmly rooted in it’s cheek and it does not take it-self seriously and I belive this is it’s only saving grace.
The plot is simple(ish). Lonely man (our hero) picks up a discarded party invite on Halloween to a ‘Murder Party’. Lonely man decides to go to said party as his cat will not get out of his seat at home (I kid you not). He makes a Knight costume out of cardboard (hmmmm) and make his way to party which is in a derilict warehouse (shocker) only to find that the ‘Murder Party’ does exactly what it says on the tin.
We meet the rest of our ensamble, a group of art students who, in all honsety, did not expect anyone to turn up, who grab him and tie him up. It soon transpires that our desperate students plan to kill our hero in the most artistic way to win a grant from Alexander, the creepy bi-sexual guru they all seem to look up to (and sleep with). However Alexander will not let them kill him until ‘the witching hour’ and so begins probably the best part of the film as our students and our hero, still tied up, take part in the ultimate game of truth and dare by injecting themselves with truth serum.
From here the farce begins and without giving away too much of the plot our hero escapes and is chased through a real ‘art-house’ party where at one point a whole room of people are axed to death and yet pretencious art lovers believe it to be part of the exhibition. Predicatbly our hero survives the impossible and is soon home again fighting it out with his cat for the chair (surely he has more than one chair I hear you shouting).
This has the look of a ‘group of players’ making a movie, with a bit of a budget, taking the piss out of the art world, a world that the makers obviously are or have been a part of. There are attempts at humour, some even work (our hero locks himself in a cupboard and look around to find or make a weapon McGuyver/A Team style and just as you are expecting him to burst out with a crudely made killing machine he instead just drops everything he has picked up on the floor to make a diversion and legs it…..well maybe you need to see it to appreciate it).
The special FX are a bit poor and limited and definatly not ground-breaking. Not the worse 79 minutes of my life and I didn’t once go for the stop button so for that alone I would say it was a passable effort and hopefully that might prompt me to look at the other two films I have been asked to review.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Although very predictable it was a fun, tounge in cheek satire of the artworld.