Party Monster (2003) Reviews

• Want to take a strange trip?

  Mr_Vai2005-03-21

  The old saying is "truth is stranger than fiction," and you know what, it's true. In "Party Monster" we are taken on a very trippy and true little journey that allows us to see first-hand, the crazy club life of New York City in the 1980s. In particular, we get an up-close and personal biography of the "club kids." The "club kids" were a group of young party monsters that were actually paid by club owners to show up at their clubs. Mind you, these kids did not do any kind of performing at all, they simply showed up. However, when you see their outrageous costumes and attire, you see why people had their eye out for them. These kids were bizarre and odd and stoned and well, weird. Livng lives that were so out of balance, tragedy was inevitable. Green and Culkin portray the two most prominent members of this group and they are both good. However, it is Culkin that really steals the movie, breaking away from his stereotypical characters of the past and playing somebody that very few actors would be brave enough to take on. The reason I gave this movie 10 stars, is the look and sound. This movie is like watching an acid flashback from the 1980s. I mean, you are there, in the room with them as they strut in and snort up. The music is 1980s, the attitude is 1980s, it is hard to describe. Much of the film is dream-like. Moreover, Culkin is mesmerizing as a character too odd for words. No, the story and acting are not Oscar-worthy, but the look of the film, the feel of the film, wow! I predict that this film will become more popular as the years go by. It has the qualities of all those great midnight movies of the 1980s. I really recommend it for people craving something different and historical (in a weird sense).

  More

• So bad, it's good - a guilty pleasure, if not quite as hedonistic as the lives of the club kids themselves

  colettesplace2005-01-02

  Party Monster is based on the true story of 80s club kid and promoter, Michael Alig, infamous for his bizarre New York parties and, later, for the brutal murder of a drug dealer. It's adapted from Alig's friend James St James' book Disco Bloodbath by filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, whose earlier documentary about Alig actually inspired St James to write the book. After a nine-year absence, Macauley Culkin returns to film as cherubic bisexual Alig, who persuades James St James (a camp Seth Green) to teach him the art of infamy. Famous for doing nothing long before reality TV, Alig becomes a manufacturer of celebrity and a promoter, serving up some wild parties, including a Halloween bloodbath, truck rave and kinky hospital party. The costumes, by Richie Rich and Michael Wilkinson, are spectacular and capture the excesses of the era. These kids affix fake spiders and cobwebs to their faces, wrap themselves in blood-soaked bandages,wear full body costumes and never look less than fabulous. Considering the low budget and appalling production values, the high profile supporting cast is a surprise. Dylan McDermot plays Galien, club owner and Alig's mentor, with Mia Kirshner as his wife, Chloe Sevigny as Alig's girlfriend, plus Natasha Lyonne, Marilyn Manson and John Stamos. Wilson Cruz is enigmatic as wannabe and drug dealer Angel, and Wilmer Valderra is suitably objectified as Alig's beloved beefcake, DJ Keoki. Party Monster suffers from uneven performances and poor direction but despite this, it's fascinating. It captures the disposability of party drug culture convincingly and will most likely become a cult classic. ***/***** stars.

  More

• Underrated (***)

  Ronin472003-10-23

  In choosing "Party Monster" as his first film in 9 years, Macauley Culkin follows a traditional pattern. He quickly became America's favorite cute little kid in the first 2 "Home Alone" movies, but then began to fade in popularity after starring in one mediocre kid flick after another. So he went into hibernation, grew up, and now returns, going for acting credibility in a tough indie movie this time rather than mainstream popularity. Sure, it's calculated, but I'd rather see him as a narcissistic, gay killer in "Party Monster" than in another movie like "Getting Even With Dad", so I'm not complaining. Culkin plays the real-life character of Michael Alig, a gay kid from the Midwest who moved to New York in the 1980's. He met James St. James (Seth Green), a ridiculously flamboyant socialite who is always dressed in bizarre costumes. There is a great scene in a doughnut shop early on where James demonstrates to Alig how to work a club, and this is Alig's introduction to that culture. Alig, shy at first but extremely ambitious, gets a job promoting parties at the Limelight and for a short time there, becomes a genuine subculture "celebrity". Him and the "Club Kids" even appeared on talk shows because of their elaborate costumes and crazy lifestyle. Eventually, his life spiraled out of control because of drug addiction and his own outrageous self-absorption, culminating in the murder of his drug dealer, Angel (Wilson Cruz), by hammer and injections of Drano. He let the body lay in his apartment for several days, before finally dismembering it and throwing it in the river. Culkin is great as Michael Alig. It's hard to imagine how he makes a character who is so shallow and self-involved likable, but Culkin does it. Even in the end, after Alig has committed murder, we still don't completely hate him. It's Seth Green, though, who absolutely steals the movie. As James St. James, the only character present who seems to have a real life force and a human heart beating under all that glitter, his performance is funny, touching, and surprising. It's also amazing how Green utterly transforms his voice and stature. He still LOOKS every bit like Seth Green, but he becomes almost unrecognizable because of his complete transformation into this larger-than-life character. "Party Monster", on such a low budget, is rather sloppily made and it goes on for too long, but on the whole it's a good movie. One that shifts gears from entertaining to disturbing with comfort and ease. And in Seth Green's performance, it has one of the most interesting characters of the year.

  More

• "Saved" by the pill....

  ptb-82005-07-02

  A famous quote by Pauline Kael about Greta Garbo was that "she was the complete reason to see a film". Well, let me tell ya, I will agree, astonishing even myself, that Maculay Culkin fits this description about PARTY MONSTER. Off screen for 9 years and making two excellent eye-popping returns (the sly wry and hilarious SAVED is the other) 23 year old Culkin is nothing more than front and center startling and compelling in this very clever club culture expose of the very real and very cruel pill bunny Michael Alig. Released clumsily on one print in Australia and off screen in 2 weeks, this film deserved smart marketing and even a reissue before DVD dumping because it has a potentially huge audience and major industry credit as a very difficult genre to re create successfully. I think PARTY MONSTER is a complete success in its serious efforts to capture the dance party scene of the 90s and the glittering bowel of its dark side. The performance by Seth Green is equally disturbingly funny, complete with effete rantings and flummoxed quips that leave the viewer smiling in admiration at his genuine talent. The look of PARTY MONSTER is almost as if Larry Cark re made "Studio 54" and got Bob Mackie to create the costumes. The art direction and costume design is especially perfect and adds hilariously to what is, I believe one of the most clever and nasty black comedies to emerge from the USA this century. Marilyn Manson as gigantic dopey drag queen Christina (geddit) is especially hilarious and shocking. If you have seen the equally brave and hilariously tragic HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH and also read Roger Ebert's superbly written and accurate review of PARTY MONSTER then you will be well equipped to deliciously slurp up every frame of this - literally - sensational disco bloodbath. To say that the astonishing and entertaining performances of Culkin and Green are fearless is the understatement of the century. 20th or 21st! PARTY MONSTER is a major achievement.

  More

• Club kids on the primrose path: The movie that '54" should have been

  bmacv2004-06-17

  'I'm the lowest kind of celebrity, a playwright's wife,' Celeste Holm tells Anne Baxter in All About Eve. Fifty-plus years later, she might still make the snapshot page in Vanity Fair (once), but new kinds of celebrity have clambered up to push her further down the pecking order. There are the Elvis impersonators and celebrity look-alikes. There are the trash-talking competitors on the reality shows. And there are the Club Kids, urban counterparts to the beach bums of a generation or two ago who sought nothing more out of life than an Endless Summer. What the Club Kids want is an Endless Party, where they can flame out in a drug-enhanced limelight. The Limelight was a fixture among New York City's young downtown hedonists in the last decades of the last century. It's the center of a very small universe for James St. James (Seth Green), a budding queen from across the Hudson who, equipped with little else than a trust fund and received notions of imperious glamor, sets out to be the social arbiter of the club scene. His misfortune (and ultimately opportunity) is meeting up with hick Michael Alig (Macaulay Culkin), just off the Big Dog from one of the square states, who will prove to be St. James' very own Eve Harrington. Imagine Bob Hope and Bing Crosby gone gay, their bitchy dynamics holding these buddies together as they prance and stumble down the Rave Road. They live in cold-water walk-ups, spending what money they have on costumes and drugs (when they can't cadge them). As a living, they set themselves up as promoters and taste-makers for struggling entrepreneurs like Dylan McDermott, whose Limelight is barely breaking even. They dream up ever more outrageous parties to lure other kids from the bridges and tunnels and tenements once occupied by immigrants but now serving as digs for druggies and rodents. (Marilyn Manson as stoned drag queen Christina serves as 'driver' for one of the events, trying to maneuver a big rig in platform heels.) Along the way there are Alig's discarded or disengaged boyfriends (Wilmer Valderrama) and girlfriends (Chloe Sevigny), sexual preference always taking a back seat first to Ecstasy and K, then to crackpipes and snorted heroin. Party Monster derives from St. James' memoir Disco Bloodbath – as a result of his plunge into addiction, Alig ends up incarcerated for the murder of his dealer Angel (Wilson Cruz). And as St. James, Green delivers a pitch-perfect performance, blackly funny yet with intimations of the shallow life he knows he leads. It's Culkin's misfortune to have his co-star so expertly steal the movie, but, with his sullen, pouty mouth, his child-star successes well behind him yet not quite filled out enough for adult roles, he's plausible as a callow social-climber who's nothing but surfaces and attitude anyway. (And as his good-time-gal-pal mom, Diana Scarwid is, as always, memorable). Party Monster maintains a deft balance between its faintly horrifying humor and its somber notes. It's a story about kids old beyond their years who, as they proudly proclaim, are utterly superficial, but still not (quite) the 'monsters' they pretend to be. Party Monster – a much more interesting and accomplished piece of work – is the movie that '54" should have been, and maybe even thought it was.

  More