Overall Rating
  Awesome: 24.05%
Worth A Look: 30.38%
Just Average: 11.39%
Pretty Crappy: 3.8%
Sucks: 30.38%
3 reviews, 61 user ratings
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| Party Monster |
by Marigold
"Macaulay Culkin turns in parody portrayal of 'Aligula'"
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Party Monster is the true story of a drug dealer’s brutal murder, but it’s also a biopic of the murderer himself, famous party-planner and NYC “king of the club kids,” Michael Alig. The murder itself takes a backseat to the personality profile of Alig, who is currently doing time for injecting Angel Melendez with Drano and then hacking up his body with kitchen utensils.Macaulay Culkin plays Alig in this movie version of the book, Disco Bloodbath, written by Alig’s close friend and fellow clubber, James St. James. The story is told in self-aware, mockumentary-style flashback, with James St. James (played by Seth Green) discussing the creation of his book and his relationship with the troubled (to say the least) Alig throughout. Incidentally, the directors made a documentary of this story back in 1997, which I suspect is more interesting. This dramatic retelling meanders around the point of what an asshole Alig was and fails to grasp the true horror of how he became a psycho-killer.
There’s no doubt that Alig provides incredible character study material. As a disturbed young man from the Midwest, Alig ran away to New York, adopted a flamboyant gay persona (though he remained bisexual), and somehow became a cult leader in the 1980’s club kid movement. A post-modern Caligula (now calling himself “Aligula”), he lived an absurdly decadent and irresponsible life in the years leading up to the murder. His only job was to throw parties and he did so with gusto, becoming famous for encouraging and perpetrating outrageous behavior involving…what else?….sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll! Well, not so much rock ‘n roll as house music, but you get the idea.
Like Alig’s life, this movie is kind of a mess. You’ve got yer flashbacks, flashforwards, drug-induced haze reenactments (ala Unsolved Mysteries), sudden breaks to the present reality/documentary style, characters coming and going for no apparent reason, plot holes, and a damn unclear timeline.
The whole crap cocktail is made extra disturbing by an atmosphere of moral decadence, mental illness, emotional bankruptcy, and Macaulay Culkin’s ugly mug. Man, his face is hard to look at! And his repulsively phony “gay” accent is a constant distraction. Like a 5th grader doing his best “flaming fag” impersonation, Culkin delivers every line of dialog in the same sing-song pattern and the results are just painful. The only good thing I can say about his acting here is that it may serve to emphasize just how vacant a human being Alig really was. This may be the only clue as to how he suddenly became a violent killer. None of it adequately explains why so many people around Alig were devoted to him and genuinely hurt by his downfall.
Green’s portrayal of St. James first struck me as similarly phony, but somehow he pulled it off and developed a more genuine and endearing character. He was much, much more enjoyable to watch.
Party Monster is interesting if you’re curious about people who made dance clubbing a way of life in the late 80’s/early 90’s. There’s a sick fascination in watching people hurt themselves so badly while having such a great time. By the way, many of the extras in this film are real clubbers, past and present. Some famous characters from back in the day make appearances as well, which makes this movie is worth seeing if only for the costumes.
But as a juicy murder-mystery, this film fails to satisfy. Even though the murder is kinda the whole point, Party Monster doesn’t look at it very closely. If you want to see something really scary, take a look at: http://www.michaelaligclubkids.com/alig.htm or any of the other Alig sites out there. He’s kickin’ it from prison these days -- examining his life and trying to figure out what went wrong. It will be interesting to see what he does if he ever gets out.(Hey, I got through this whole review without using the word “fabulous” once!)
link directly to this review at https://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=6911&reviewer=356
originally posted: 03/05/04 14:14:24
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2003 Edinburgh Film Festival. For more in the 2003 Edinburgh Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2003 Sundance Film Festival. For more in the 2003 Sundance Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
05-Sep-2003 (R)
DVD: 10-Feb-2004
UK
N/A
Australia
06-May-2004
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