The Williamsburg hipster arts scene has been asking for a parody, and in Jeremy Saulnier’s Murder Party, the “scene” got exactly what was coming to it, namely shameless mockery via gallons of fake blood. Described by Saulnier as The Breakfast Club meets chainsaws and drugs, the Slamdance Audience Award Winner follows the story of Chris, an unassertive parking ticket enforcement officer who stumbles upon an unlabeled party invitation on Halloween night. Little does Chris know, however that the party is to his own murder, a set-up by a group of typically eccentric and pretentious artists who intend to exploit the experience in order to get grant money from the mysterious art guru Alexander.

Playing with multiple genres, the cinematic tonal shifts bounce off one another to create a layer of comedy entirely produced by spot-on editorial pacing. Shot coverage, Saulnier mentioned in a Q&A at the Atlanta Film Festival, was actually the largest concern in terms of pacing as there were numerous cast members, all of equal importance, all equally capable of rapid boredom at reshooting the same sequences, and so decisions on set primarily steered the transitions of tonal shifts in post.

The intense run of over-the-top performances by actors Sandy Barnett, Macon Blair, Stacy Rock and William Lacey, among others, drove the dialogue, some lines from which are sure to find their way into a dictionary of iconic cult film quotes.

Playful and ridiculous, Murder Party makes a convincing argument about why “everyone has to die.”

For more information, visit www.murderpartymovie.com.

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