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Movie Review
It's My Party and I'll Die If I Want To
Directed by Tony Wash (2007)
Reviewed by MaT, added on Jan 8 2008
I first heard about this flick while watching a review on Drunken Zombie and shortly thereafter the director contacted me about reviewing a screener. By the way, I could have sworn that there was another movie with the same exact title and doing a little googling, found out that there is. Unlike that one, this is a horror flick and from what I understand (I could be wrong on the details) this was a student film shot at Tom Savini's school and the sheet that came with it claims it's "The First Ever Choose Your Own Adventure DVD!!!", though the version I watched didn't seem to offer that. I got it today, and in a horribly depressed mood after seeing the Clinton Machine beat Obama in New Hampshire, I decided to pop it in my DVD player to get my mind off the political apocalypse. There's nothing like watching some people being slaughtered to bring my spirits up :)
The story is pretty simple: Some years back, a dude went crazy and killed his family in various gory ways. Fast forward to Halloween, today. The house where the deed was done is condemned and abandoned. A bunch of young people gather for a surprise birthday party for one of their friends. As you'd expect, the ghosts and ghouls of the house start killing them off in gruesome ways. You'll recognize early on that it isn't the most original of plots.
You can tell right away that It's My Party and I'll Die If I Want To is a student film. It's chock full of homages to horror films. Now that I think about it, it's sort of a souped up version of Stupid Teenagers Must Die!. Both films essentially trade in the same formula: stick some teens in a house and kill them off while winking to horror fans as they do it. Party goes a little further into supernatural territory, think Night of the Demons, and really ratchets up the gore quotient. There's buckets of blood and organs on display throughout, and though some of it looks a tad cheesy at times (the closeup of the kid's face getting beaten in comes to mind), it pretty much delivers in that area.
As I mentioned before, you'll see lots of homages to 80's horror films. The main girl loves horror films and dresses like Elvira while commenting appreciatively to her mother about a cardboard cutout of Jason Voorhees at her birthday dinner. There's an extended "training" sequence that is a blatant nod to Rick from ANOES 4, the demon running around the house moves in a way that reminded me of Seth Brundle, and the film has many "comic book" transitions that mimic Creepshow, even going so far as to do the over-the-top bright colored deaths at the end. For what it's worth, this film pulled off its homages much better than Teenagers. There's also some effective scenes in the film. Probably the best one is when a girl looks under a bed and finds two ghostly kids covered in blood staring back at her. It's effectively shot and definitely the best part of the film from a pure film making perspective.
Though the gore is well done and the film is directed competently by Tony Wash (only a couple instances where the editing went a little loopy) I couldn't get past a couple really annoying aspects. First, I'm not sure if the screener I got was messed up, but almost every scene has this weird motion blur, choppy aspect to it. It looks like it was shot in a way where all the motion on screen doesn't come out smoothly. It's hard to explain, and it could very well not be like that on other copies of the DVD, but it was really damn distracting. After the violent introduction, the film bogs down as we're introduced to a variety of characters that aren't interesting in the slightest. The ending is also weak.
For being a low-budget student film, this is still a fun movie, don't get me wrong. The gore is good, there are a couple of really good scenes that show glimpses of Wash's potential, and you'll even get to see some breasts such as the obligatory shower scene complete with "I've got a non-nudity clause" stunt boobs. The problems stem largely from the fact that I've seen this same movie about ten million times, the characters are completely one dimensional, and the editing/pacing gets a little out of control (the direction is much more effective without fast cuts and stylish editing). Supposedly, it's going to be released by Full Moon in the near future, and I'd recommend taking a look for fans who respect low-budget indie filmmaking.
For more info, visit Scotchworthy.com
6 / 10
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