Murder Party (2007) Revisited – Horror Movie Review

Being set around Halloween, Scream VI was packed with immediately recognizable horror costumes. Jason Voorhees. Freddy Krueger. Michael Myers. Pinhead. Not to mention Ghostface. They were all in there. But during a party scene, one of the characters is wearing a costume you might not recognize. It’s a knight’s suit of armor, but made out of cardboard. That’s the same costume the protagonist in the 2007 horror comedy Murder Party (watch it HERE) wears. If you didn’t recognize it, then we have to tell you all about Murder Party – because it’s the Best Horror Movie You Never Saw.

Murder Party was the feature directorial debut of Jeremy Saulnier, who has gone on to direct films like the revenge thriller Blue Ruin, the neo-Nazi horror film Green Room, and the mystery thriller Hold the Dark, as well as episodes of True Detective season 3. Saulnier also wrote the screenplay for the film. But chances are that most of the names on the cast list won’t be familiar to you. That’s because many of the stars are friends Saulnier had been making shot-on-video movies with since sixth grade. A lot of them have the same name as the characters they play. Because these roles were written specifically for them.

Chris Sharp stars as Christopher S. Hawley. A lonely, anxious fellow who makes a living by ruining people’s days. Writing parking tickets. He’s planning to spend Halloween night by himself, at home. Watching horror movies and munching on candy corn. But on his way back from the video store, he finds a party invitation on the sidewalk. An open invitation to come to something called the “Murder Party”. But you have to come alone. At first, Christopher sticks with his plans. But this guy doesn’t even get respect from his cat, Sir Lancelot. Who won’t give up the recliner in his living room. With no place to sit, Christopher decides to go to the murder party. And creates a costume for himself: a suit of armor, made out of cardboard. He also whips up a batch of pumpkin bread. Then heads out to find the party venue.

The party is being held inside an isolated warehouse in a sketchy neighborhood. When Christopher enters the building, he finds only a few people inside: Paul Goldblatt as Paul, who’s dressed as a nineteenth century vampire. Skei Saulnier, the director’s wife and the film’s producer, as Sky. Dressed as a zombie cheerleader. Stacy Rock plays Lexi, who’s dressed as Pris from Blade Runner. William Lacey is Bill, dressed as a Baseball Fury from The Warriors. And Macon Blair plays Macon, who has a werewolf mask. Macon Blair is the best known of the cast members, as he has gone on to act in a lot more films. Not only does he have a role in every Saulnier movie, but he has also shown up in things like The Florida Project, Logan Lucky, Swamp Thing, The Hunt, and Reservation Dogs. He was even in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. He has gotten into directing as well, making I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore and the remake of the Troma classic The Toxic Avenger.

As soon as these people spot Christopher, it’s clear he made a mistake by coming here. They capture him, tie him to a chair. And reveal that this is called a murder party because they’re going to murder him. Their only guest, invited at random. It was pure chance, Christopher’s bad luck, that he was the one who found the invitation. This group has decided to carry out a murder at the suggestion of a guy called Alexander. Played by Sandy Barnett. Who shows up with his drug dealer, Bill Tangradi as Zycho. And his dog Hellhammer. Paul, Sky, Lexi, Bill, and Macon are all struggling artists. And they’ll do anything to please Alexander because he has grant money in excess of three hundred thousand dollars. Which he’ll hand out to the artist who impresses him the most. Alexander decides they should commit the murder at midnight. So they have some time to wait. And they pass their time by eating pizza. Doing drugs. Dancing. Having sex. Critiquing each other’s work. And playing Extreme Truth or Dare. Which involves being injected with sodium amytal. Truth serum.

Things start to go off track very quickly. Beginning when Sky takes a taste of Christopher’s pumpkin bread, not realizing it has non-organic raisins in it. She’s allergic to preservatives, they make her dizzy. So she falls over in the exact wrong spot. Hitting her head on some junk and receiving a fatal head wound. She’s just the first person to die. By the end of the night, members of this twisted art collective will have revealed some shocking secrets to each other. And a lot more people will be dead.

Murder Party comes to us from a filmmaking group called The Lab of Madness. Which Saulnier and his friends formed in 1986, when they made their first shot-on-video movie. From sixth grade through high school, the Lab of Madness was making movies together all the time. Some of them were even school assignments where they turned in videos instead of written work. After film school, they started focusing on making a feature together. They began pitching a movie called Moustache in the year 2000. They tried their best to go through the proper channels to get funding and a greenlight. They made a well-received short called Crabwalk in 2004. But still couldn’t get the money to film Moustache. So in August of 2005, they decided to just scrape together whatever money they could get. And make their own movie. When Halloween rolled around, Saulnier shot the footage that’s used for the Murder Party title sequence. The script hadn’t even been written at that point. But Saulnier worked it out over the next couple months.

The story was inspired by the experience of living in an artist enclave in Brooklyn. Dealing with pretentious people. Witnessing what it’s like in the snooty art scene. This is how Saulnier came up with the idea for a character like Alexander. And the artists who desperately want his approval.

Other inspirations include the John Hughes film The Breakfast Club and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope. Since they are, like Murder Party, about a group of people interacting with each other in one location. And Martin Scorsese’s After Hours. Another story about a regular guy descending into a bizarre world hidden within New York. Saulnier has described Murder Party as “The Breakfast Club with chainsaws and hard drugs”, but Rope and After Hours were the movies he meticulously dissected before Murder Party officially went into production in February of 2006.

It wasn’t the easiest filming experience. The cast and crew had to deal with cold temperatures and budgetary limitations. But the film turned out well. It did the festival rounds. It won the Audience Award for Best Feature at the Slamdance Film Festival. And it secured distribution deals. Magnolia gave Murder Party a special edition DVD release – complete with commentary and featurettes – just in time for Halloween in 2007. The film quickly gathered a cult following. And obviously Scream VI directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are part of that cult. Since they paid tribute to the film in their slasher sequel.

Aside from Macon Blair, it’s surprising to see how few film credits most of the cast members have racked up since working on this one. Some of them seem to be more focused on music. While Paul Goldblatt’s further credits came as a makeup effects artist. Whether or not they were interested in acting careers, they all turned in awesome performances here. Like The Breakfast Club, Murder Party is carried on the strength of its dialogue and character interactions. Most of the bloody action is packed into the last twenty minutes. If Saulnier hadn’t done such a great job writing the dialogue, and the actors hadn’t delivered it perfectly, the movie wouldn’t work. Watching people talk for extended periods of time can be dull. But in this film, the character interactions are fascinating. And very amusing. It makes the ride to the bloodshed totally worth taking.

Along the way, the pretentious art scene gets a well-deserved skewering. Through the nonsense the Alexander character spews. The way the grant-seeking artists bow down to him. The way they talk about their art… and how they talk about other people’s art. The absurdity of their behavior is enhanced by the fact that they’re all either drinking to excess. Or consuming a variety of drugs. There are also some funny moments dealing with the unrequited crush Macon has on Lexi. And his intense attempt to avenge Sky’s accidental death by dousing Christopher with acid. An act that he immediately regrets and tries to apologize for. Thankfully, it’s not the corrosive acid he thought it was. It’s just vinegar.

While all of the artists have agreed to throw this murder party, not many of them seem like they’ll actually be able to go through with killing someone. The fact that they seem highly unlikely to be homicidal makes them easier to spend time with. The more we hear from them, the more it becomes apparent that they’re all a bit dense. But harmless. The wild cards are Alexander. The drug-dealing, gun-toting Zycho. And Bill. Who seems like he’s teetering on the edge of living up to his costume. You can definitely imagine this guy beating someone to death with a baseball bat.

Sure enough, he eventually snaps. And Bill is primarily responsible for the bloodshed that occurs toward the end of the film. If you’re here for the horror, this is where you’ll find it. When Bill starts hacking people up. Chasing Christopher across rooftops and through buildings. While also being pursued by Macon… Who by this time is terribly burned, with his werewolf mask melted to his face. And he has a chainsaw called Ol’ Painless. In tribute to the Minigun carried by Jesse Ventura in the John McTiernan classic Predator.

There are a lot of great comedic moments before we plunge into the murder and mayhem. One of the best laugh-out-loud scenes comes when Christopher briefly gets loose from his chair. He tries to escape from the warehouse, but ends up cornered in a small storage room. There are items in there he could use to defend himself. He’s just not able to put that together in his mind. Instead, he comes bursting out of the storage room with an armload of random junk. He weakly tosses this at his attackers, does a hilarious-looking attempt at a directional fake-out, then runs away. And gets captured again.

Murder Party is a lot of fun to watch. It moves along at a good pace. And provides seventy-nine minutes of good dialogue and fun scenarios. Capped off by a glorious bloodbath. It’s a movie that deserves to be included in your annual Halloween marathons. So if you haven’t seen it yet, it’s highly recommended that you seek it out. It’s available for rent or purchase on Prime Video. Or you can still find copies of the old DVD. Just make sure you’re getting the Murder Party that was released in 2007. Another movie used the same title in 2022.

If you’re not sold on it yet, maybe this description given by the cast and crew in a featurette will seal the deal. “Murder Party is a whiz-bang, jaw-dropping shock fest with burned faces, naked breasts, big laughs, lots of swearing, killing, blood, guts, mayhem, cats and dogs, chainsaws, heterosexual sex, homosexual sex, pizza, cake, and just a little bit of character development. It’s all there.” You really can’t ask for anything more.

A couple previous episodes of the Best Horror Movie You Never Saw series can be seen below. To see more, and to check out some of our other shows, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!