Murder Party (2007)

It's Hallowe'en night, and Chris is settling in for a night of bad horror movies and candy corn with the cat. But fate intervenes, accidentally delivering a black card invitation to a "murder party." Despite the fact that the invitation specifies to come alone to an abandoned warehouse, and that he has no idea who sent it, and that, er, it says it's a "murder party", Chris decides to go - though not before he's fashioned a knight's costume out of some cardboard and duct tape.

What he finds when he gets there can barely be described as a party. Rather, it's a group of pretentious art students, fuelled by an obscene cocktail of bizarre drugs, all competing with one another to win grant money from a mysterious patron named Alexander. And they all think that the best way to make an artistic statement would be to kill someone.

Something that quickly becomes clear is that the person who wrote this script really, really hates art students. Every single one of them is unpleasant; usually stupid, narcissistic, easily led, and did I mention stupid? As the night progresses, Chris watches from the seat he's been restrained to as the group indulges in a game of Extreme Truth or Dare, using some nonsensical truth serum to ensure that all of their confessions are honest. And then one by one they manage to kill themselves, and each other - especially once it emerges that there never was any art grant, and they've all been played for fools.

As a horror movie, Murder Party fails, because it's not scary. But as a black comedy, and a rant against art student clichés? A resounding success. Despite the rather slow start, once the mayhem kicks off it continues apace, and the death scenes are highly inventive. Murder Party is proof that, just when you think you've seen every possible variation on the whole lots-of-people-get-killed-off theme, someone goes and makes something to prove you wrong. Considering the low budget, the fact that it's written and directed by someone you've never heard of and starring a pack of absolute nobodies, Murder Party is well acted and directed; it's also engaging and occasionally very, very funny - if only for the novelty value.

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