KILLER PARTY AND TOTAL FILM'S LIST OF 50 AMAZING FILMS YOU'VE PROBABLY NEVER SEEN

An interesting list from Total Film http://www.totalfilm.com/features/50-amazing-films-you-ve-probably-never-seen/

I’m always looking for good unknown movies to see (finds I can write about).

I think I’ve probably seen about a third of these movies – COME AND SEE, THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE, A QUIET PLACE IN THE COUNTRY, THE POWER in particular are all films worthy of more attention.

But one film that they’d included  which is quite unlike any other film of its type (and which they correctly praise for its “Anything can happen” vibe) and which I am going to write about is KILLER PARTY.

It’s not a masterpiece but as I said it is a unique piece of work.  Not a slasher film at all but something that turns that genre so popular in the 1980’s inside out the way CABIN IN THE WOODS did recently but without as much fanfare.

For starters, this is a film that is clearly poking fun at itself.  Not only is the story going on but underneath is a current of self-reference, mockery perhaps but not constantly humorous

KILLER PARTY starts off with a five minute horror scene that turns out to be in a drive in movie watched by a young couple.  Their story which turns into another horror vignette turns out to be part of a music video which segues into the credits of the movie then the real story gets under way.

The plot is by the numbers.  College sorority house decides to hold a Halloween party for new initiates, other frats etc. at an abandoned frat house shut down years ago after the death of one of its members due to hazing.  Of course reopening the house means murders will occur but that’s the only predictable part of this film.

Not very many murders occur in the first hour (Only the two faculty advisers  but then there is one murder after another for the last 20 minutes which is not the way action usually unfolds in this type of film. 

About halfway through, the plot (Particularly what the threat is) goes in a much different direction and the last 15 minutes is like something from THE EVIL DEAD.  The ending is a black joke I didn’t see coming.

The fact that this film came out in the 1986 is part of the goof.  At times, it seems to be making fun of itself as if it was made sometime after the 80’s and is looking back and making fun of the fashions, the way people spoke and acted etc.

Like ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE which I wrote about here http://rgdinmalaysia.xanga.com/669813511/all-the-boys-love-mandy-lane/  the structure gets tweaked but there is a winking going in – The filmmaker winking at the audience so we are in on the joke.