Film Review: Monster Party (2018)

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SYNOPSIS:

Desperate for money to pay off a debt a trio of friends pose as wait staff at a private party with the intentions of stealing as much money from the party goers as possible. Unfortunately for them though, the people at the party aren’t exactly what they seem, and it could be the last party that any of the three friends ever attend.

REVIEW:

I went into Monster Party expecting it to be a fun little ride that featured monsters running amok slaughtering people left and right. Boy was I wrong. I mean, if you have a movie called Monster Party, you’d expect actual monsters to show up at one point, right? Instead of getting literal monsters though we get something else and it just wasn’t quite as fun as I’d hoped it would be. I was hoping for some sort of Demons or Evil Dead-like flick but that wasn’t exactly what I got, and I couldn’t help but feel extremely disappointed as a result. I wouldn’t really say that Monster Party was really a bad movie but at the same time it wasn’t anything special either.

The premise had a lot of promise as it sounded interesting enough. We have a guy that is desperate to raise $10,000 to save his father from a loan shark so he decides to crash this prestigious party with two of his friends in hopes of stealing the money he needs from the people there. Once they get there though they realize something is a little off with the party goers and before you know it our heroes find themselves fighting for their lives. Sounds cool, right? I thought so too and couldn’t wait for all the weirdos to start turning into all sorts of awesome-looking monsters that would start tearing the main characters to bits in all kinds of fun and bloody ways but sadly it just didn’t happen. You see, instead of literal monsters the antagonists of the movie are just normal people who happen to be serial killers. Pretty lame, huh? Especially if you are like me and were expecting werewolves and other creatures to show up. It’s like I already said, if you are going to call your movie Monster Party it would probably be a good idea to have an actual monster or two in it. Otherwise it’s just false advertisement if you ask me.

I also just didn’t care for any of the characters. The three main characters are unlikable for the most part and to be honest I just didn’t care if any of them lived or died (as a matter of fact I was glad when they started getting killed off). The villains of the film aren’t much better as they are led by Julian McMahon (who is wearing this weird Hugh Hefner outfit for some unknown reason and has a moustache that makes him look like a cross between Walt Disney and Raul Julia when he played Gomez Addams in The Addams Family) who comes off just about as intimidating as Mickey Mouse. Poor old Robin Tunney plays McMahon’s character’s wife and does pretty much nothing every time she is on camera (I guess she just really needed a pay check). Without a doubt though, the worst characters in the entire film are McMahon and Tunney’s son and his two friends. They are a bunch of annoying frat-type bros and are the most obnoxious and unlikeable bunch of jackasses I’ve seen in a film in a very long time. As I’ve said countless times before it’s extremely hard to get into a movie if you don’t like any of the characters and this film is the perfect example of that.

Another issue I had with the film is that it had pacing issues. It moves along at a snail’s pace and once things finally start happening you really won’t care anymore. I was bored out of my mind for over half the movie and just wanted something to happen that would break up the monotony of the characters just sitting around talking about stuff I didn’t care anything about. I was just about to give up on it completely when people eventually started getting killed off but to be honest none of the death scenes are worth mentioning as they are all by-the-numbers and unoriginal for the most part. I think a lot of the scenes that take place toward the middle of the movie could have been left on the cutting room floor because they don’t add anything that amazing to things and if I didn’t know any better, I would say they were just thrown in there to pad out the movie’s overall running time.

On paper Monster Party might sound mighty interesting but the execution was highly flawed. It wasn’t at all what I thought it was going to be and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t let down by it after everything was said and done. Most of it doesn’t work and I can’t say that I had a good time watching it (and don’t even get me started on the goofy ending that is just painfully bad). It just wasn’t for me but that doesn’t mean that other people won’t like it, so give it a shot if it sounds like something that you might be into. Just don’t expect to see any real monsters in it going on a bloody killing spree and you may not be too let down by it like I was.