Murder Party

Murder Party
Directed by	Jeremy Saulnier
Produced by	Skei Saulnier Chris Sharp
Written by	Jeremy Saulnier
Starring	Chris Sharp Sandy Barnett Macon Blair Paul Goldblatt William Lacey Stacy Rock
Distributed by	Magnolia Pictures (US)
Release date(s)	January, 2007 (Slamdance Film Festival), 21 July 2007 (Fantasia Festival)
Running time	79 min.
Country	United States
Language	English

Murder Party is an American comedy-horror film directed by Jeremy Saulnier. It was shot in Brooklyn, New York. It was given the Audience Award for Best Feature at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival. ^[1]

Plot

"It's the breakfast club with chainsaws and hard drugs."

—Jeremy Saulnier

Christopher, a lonely and plain man, finds an invitation to a Halloween costume party entitled "Murder Party", on the street. Constructing a knight costume out of cardboard, he makes his way to Brooklyn to attend the party, only to discover it is actually a trap set by a group of deranged art students. The art students are costumed as a goth/vampire, a werewolf, a zombie cheerleader, Daryl Hannah's replicant character from Blade Runner, and a Baseball Fury from The Warriors (film). They intend to commit a murder as a piece of artwork to impress their wealthy and sinister patron. Chris brought along a loaf of pumpkin raisin bread, which one of the students starts to eat. She then reveals that she is allergic to non-organic raisins, and didn't know about them. The group asks if she'll be OK, and she agrees explaining she's only a little dizzy and needs to sit down, however she falls over and hits her head on an axe and dies. The group hides the body, as they don't want their patron when he arrives.

The patron comes and has arrived late to the Murder Party and is searching for students to award grant money to. Drugs and alcohol fuel the group as the situation spirals out of their control and Christopher tries to make it home from the Murder Party alive.

The Lab of Madness

The Lab of Madness began with Christopher Sharp, Macon Blair, and Jeremy Saulnier as they were growing up in the 1980s and shooting short horror films on a VHS Camcorder and Super 8. Their first film was made in the 6th grade and was titled Megacop (1986). Later they were joined by Paul Goldblatt, Sandy Barnett, and Bill Lacey. The group would often do school assignments as video projects, so their vast filmography includes interpretations of classical works such as Macbeth and Beowulf. After high school, all went to various film schools and kept in touch.

The Lab of Madness' first attempt at a feature was a screenplay titled Moustache. They shot a short film titled Crabwalk in an attempt to get funding for the film. After failing to find investors, the group decided to greenlight Murder Party with no money in August of 2005, and in February 2006 they began shooting. ^[2]

Production

The shoot was rough with many taking multiple roles on the production. Despite the freezing set, a tight knit crew emerged. Much of the planned of the special effects had to be compromised due to budget constraints but because of this a lot more focus was put on a few individual effects. Visual effects artist Chris Connelly was brought in to work in post-production on the make up effects to supplement what was done on set. Director Jeremy Saulnier names Sandy Barnett as the most difficult actor to work with considering constant pranks and lack of attention span.

References

1. ^ http://archive.slamdance.com/2007/festival/
2. ^ Extreme Truth: The Making of Murder Party

External links

• Muder Party at IMDB
• Murder Party at Allmovie
• Interview with The Lab of Madness on MonsterFresh.com