Movie Review for Party Monster

Summary: Set in the New York club scene of the late 1980's thru the 1990's, a tale which chronicles the rise and fall of "club-kid" promoter Michael Alig, a party organizer, whose extravagant life was sent spiralling downward when he boasted on television that he had killed his "friend", roommate, and drug dealer, Angel Melendez. Originally from Indiana, Alig moved to New York, and came to be an underground legend, known for his excessive drug use and outrageous behavior in the club world. At his peak, he had his own record label, and magazine, and hosted Disco 2000, one of the biggest club nights in New York in the '90s. He was doing a lot of drugs, and as his addiction got worse, his party themes became darker and more twisted. Alig's saga reached its tragic crescendo when he viciously murdered his drug dealer, Angel, by injecting him with Drano and throwing him in the East River. The power he wielded on the club scene made him feel untouchable, so he didn't hestitate to boast of the murder. The press thought it was a publicity stunt--until Angel's body washed ashore.

                         Reviews of Party Monster
By Marc Savlov of Austin Chronicle (7/0)
            Like Alig, Party Monster is a colorful mess, all style and substances and little else.

By Jamie Russell of BBC (7/0)
            It's camp, trashy and altogether too silly for its own good, only proving that 23-year-old Culkin...

By Ty Burr of Boston Globe (7/0)
            Vapid Party doesn't end early enough.

By Rob Thomas of Capital Times (Madison, WI) (7/0)
            Never has the Manhattan club scene ever looked so tedious; this film makes a powerful argument fo...

By Mark Caro of Chicago Tribune (7/0)
            In the end you don't believe what you're watching, and you don't care. This party is a drag.

By Peter Sobczynski of Critic Doctor (7/0)
            'Party Monster' is so concerned with flash and style that it forgets to provide anything of subst...

                         Reviews of Party Monster
By Eric D. Snider of EricDSnider.com (7/0)
            It's a fun movie, for the most part. Its only trouble is that it doesn't add up to as much as it ...

By David Noh of Film Journal International (7/0)
            The film has been superbly cast down to its smallest roles, and the talent and energy of the perf...

By Chris Barsanti of filmcritic.com (7/0)
            ...(Macauley) Culkin...and (Seth) Green, both just as fabulous and pretentious as they can be, pu...

By Kirk Honeycutt of Hollywood Reporter (7/0)
            ...a clumsy affair with acting styles all over the place and little narrative structure or rhythm...

By Steve Rhodes of Internet Reviews (7/0)
            The worst comedy since Death to Smoochy.

By Andrea Chase of Killer Movie Reviews (7/0)
            Call it what you will, a morality tale, a cautionary fable, one walks away with a sense of cathar...

                         Reviews of Party Monster
By Ernest Hardy of L.A. Weekly (7/0)
            Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (who also directed the marginally better 1998 documenta...

By Frank Swietek of One Guy's Opinion (7/0)
            As a human document 'Party Monster' is pretty much a disaster...shapeless and sloppy.

By Jon Popick of Planet Sick-Boy (7/0)
            So awful, it’s almost good.

By Glenn Kenny of Premiere Magazine (7/0)
            Better than I expected but still not entirely convincing.

By David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews (7/0)
            ...like the majority of flicks that prominently feature drug use, the whole thing begins to sink ...

By Peter Travers of Rolling Stone (7/0)
            This film feels fake, forced and indigestible.

                         Reviews of Party Monster
By Charles Taylor of Salon.com (7/0)
            If I hadn't had a professional obligation to stay until the end, I'd have disappeared faster than...

By Peter Hartlaub of San Francisco Chronicle (7/0)
            ...the actions of the glammy main characters become boorish and tedious long before the party's o...

By Sean Axmaker of Seattle Post-Intelligencer (7/0)
            ...take out the fashions and the culture of self-promotion and empty celebrity and it's a familia...

By Ben Walters of Sight and Sound (7/0)
            It's Green who, despite his straight-man role ... steals the show, with a performance of controll...

By Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone of TheMovieChicks.com (7/0)
            It doesn't live up to the wild times it portrays - the only thing I got from this movie was an id...

By Maitland McDonagh of TV Guide's Movie Guide (7/0)
            Green's St. James steals the picture out from under [Culkin] (poetic justice of a sort), and the ...

                         Reviews of Party Monster
By Laura Sinagra of Village Voice (7/0)
            The film is ultimately more a C.A.K.E. partyer's failed fetish object than a keg partyer's new Si...

By A. O. Scott of New York Times (3/5) Login Required (Login Required)
            [A] muddled, sometimes touching movie.

By A. O. Scott of New York Times (3/5) Login Required (Login Required)
            Like its title character, Party Monster is ultimately too self-involved to care about anyone ...

By Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times (3/4) No reference
            ...leaves us feeling sad and empty...

By Jeff Vice of Deseret News, Salt Lake City (6/1) No reference
            Memo to Macaulay Culkin: When your latest cinematic 'comeback' attempt is a film like Party Monst...

By D.W. Smith of E! Online (3/4) No reference
            The film is playful and never dares take itself too seriously...

                         Reviews of Party Monster
By Marshall Fine of Journal News (Westchester, NY) (3/4) No reference
            Culkin does a deadly impression of Alig.

By Fred Shuster of Los Angeles Daily News (3/4) No reference
            Another of those films that leaves you with the perennial question: 'Who paid for this garbage?'

By Paul Doro of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (6/1) No reference
            Hedonism deserves better representation.

By James Rocchi of Netflix (3/4) No reference
            Fact-based story of drugs and death in "clubland" is boring and banal, failing in its attempt to ...

By Lou Lumenick of New York Post (3/4) No reference
            ...messy and hysterical...

By Stephen Whitty of Newark Star-Ledger (3/4) No reference
            Both pointless and grotesque, it accomplishes nothing but the impossible: It makes the charismati...

                         Reviews of Party Monster
By Kim Morgan of Oregonian (3/4) No reference
            A tone deaf picture that fails to be either darkly funny or intelligently consequential.

By Steven Rea of Philadelphia Inquirer (3/4) No reference
            It's the drunk-guy- at-the-party syndrome: The only one truly entertained by the clown with the l...

By Peter Travers of Rolling Stone (3/4) No reference
            This film feels fake, forced and indigestible.

By Joe Baltake of Sacramento Bee (6/1) No reference
            It's a cinematic party, one long, strung-out bash that starts out as a novelty and turns into som...

By Sean Means of Salt Lake Tribune (3/4) No reference
            The look, like Culkin's self-consciously manic performance, is all surface -- which may be the po...

By Moira MacDonald of Seattle Times (4/3) No reference
            We begin the film not knowing what brought Michael and James together. We end, after a too-long 9...

                         Reviews of Party Monster
By Josh Larsen of Sun Publications (Chicago, IL) (3/4) No reference
            ...offers a limited authenticity, for it never delves behind the copious amounts of makeup its su...

By Michael O'Sullivan of Washington Post (3/4) No reference
            Never goes deeper than what you might get out of Dr. Phil on a bad day.

Movie Distributors
Strand Releasing

Production Companies
World of Wonder Productions
Killer Films
ContentFilm

Movie Studios