Murder Party/Blue Ruin

Murder Party (2007)

Runtime: 79 minutes

Directed by: Jeremy Saulnier

Starring: Chris Sharp, Macon Blair, Stacy Rock, Paul Goldblatt, William Lacey

From: The Lab of Madness

Blue Ruin (2013)

Runtime: 90 minutes

Directed by: Jeremy Saulnier

Starring: Macon Blair, Devin Ratray (yes, Buz from the Home Alone films), Amy Hargreaves, Kevin Kolack

From: The Lab of Madness

Yes, this is a double shot where I review two movies at once. They are from the same director and these are the only feature length films he's done so it makes sense. The bulk of this is from my Letterboxd reviews, by the way. Note that I only gave Murder Party 1 star out of 5. The plot description from IMDb: "A random invitation to a Halloween party leads a man into the hands of a rogue collective intent on murdering him for the sake of their art, sparking a bloodbath of mishap, mayhem and hilarity." The last part of it I cast into doubt...

Someone I know on a messageboard has heavily pimped the film Blue Ruin and I was one of the few to show interest in it so for his sake I figured I should finally watch that film... but not before checking out the first film from the director, where Blue Ruin's star is a co-star here. I actually had heard of it before way back when on a horror podcast. It was mentioned briefly and it was said that someone dressed like a Baseball Fury from The Warriors, which is in fact true.

Well, this unfortunately didn't inspire hope in me that I'll enjoy the highly regarded Blue Ruin, as I thought this was another film I saw this weekend that was intolerable and just pretty bad. The central conceit of a random person being killed in the name of art is rather dumb logically but I hoped I would still enjoy it as I understood it spoofed and made fun of hipster pretentious art student douches, people who I have little experience with but I imagine are the sort of people I couldn't stand. I now wonder if the filmmakers were actually douchey pretentious art students themselves.

Sad to say, this seemed like a short stretched out WAY too long just to make it 80 minutes. All the talking bits among characters that were just stupid and dragged on and on and on... and I barely laughed at all at what was allegedly a “comedy”... sorry but this is another film where I do not understand the hype and praise at all.

Good job, this guy made it with his buddies-some of who are atrocious actors-and it poorly spoofed what should have been an easy target and almost put me to sleep like it was a Ti West film... I don't get it.

Now, onto Blue Ruin, a movie I only gave 2 1/2 stars. I hope I don't sound like a "hater" now with my last few reviews. I am just being honest here. The plot description for that, again from the IMDb: "A mysterious outsider's quiet life is turned upside down when he returns to his childhood home to carry out an act of vengeance. Proving himself an amateur assassin, he winds up in a brutal fight to protect his estranged family." That outsider is a homeless guy who lives in a crappy car, which was interesting. I was amused that a bit role was played by Eve Plumb. Yes, Jan Brady.

By now some people that follow me probably think I'm starting to turn into Armond White. I swear that's not the case. It's just that as of late I've been baffled by the films that have gotten a huge amount of praise. For a few months now, here and elsewhere I've heard about how great this movie is, and finally tonight I saw the director's first film (Murder Party) then this one. Murder Party was pretty bad in my opinion and I did not understand the praise it's gotten since it came out. Still, I had hopes that the director made a massive improvement and I'd love this tale and I'd feel the same way about it that everyone else does.

Sad to say, this movie full of preposterous moments, shit that don't make sense, dumb convenient plot twists, padding to make it feature length (just like in Murder Party; this had some Ti West glacial pacing too), characters I didn't like due to them acting nonsensically-I am looking at you, Dwight's sister-and a cypher of a main character I was never given any reason to care about... it really left me cold. I can't say I hate it as Blair's performance as the homeless guy lead was fine, there were some memorable moments, the Virginia scenery sure looked nice and the general idea of a man looking for revenge on the man who killed his parents only for it to go horrifically wrong is a good one. I just feel very disappointed by this and not because it didn't turn out like how I expected. 

I wish it didn't have those problems and have the stench of “pretentious indy movie bullcrap” but I guess most people love it so I'm in the wrong... I really wish I knew why most film fans love it; I just can't comprehend it. Maybe the film was too built up for me but I felt that in the end it was really pointless and a waste of time-as I was never given a reason to care-and like I said, disappointing in my eyes.

I'll return tomorrow night, hopefully with something more positive.