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FILM REVIEW
Party Monster (2003)
Q
Filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato have built a pretty strong reputation on their usually well-crafted documentaries on interesting public women (The Real Ellen Story and The Eyes of Tammy Faye) or gay issues (101 Rent Boys and Out of the Closet, Off the Screen).
Adapting their 1998 documentary about Michael Alig, the notorious New York club kid king-turned-murderer, seemed like a natural for a fictionalized big-screen retelling and with a cast of kitchy familiar faces it should have been an indie dream come true. But there's one hitch. It's utterly awful.
Macaulay Culkin delivers one of the worst performances in recent memory as a New York transplant who quickly rises to the top the gay party scene as the poster child for the hugely successful club-kid culture, with glitter makeup, gaudy outfits and designer drugs to match.
Sinking deeper into debt and drug addiction, Alig is finally "driven'' to murder (and dismember) his former drugdealer/friend, Angel (played by Wilson Cruz).
The trouble is Culkin is entirely unconvincing across the board: as charming, as drug-addled or as gay, for that matter. His only attempt at onscreen affection is a kiss with That '70s Show's Wilmer Valderrama[ cq], but the camera cuts away before the two can lock lips. Even the usually dependable Seth Green, playing Alig's best friend James St. James (author of the book Disco Bloodbath on which the film is based), comes off as exactly what he is -- a straight guy doing a bad effeminate gay man impersonation.
The end result is an offensive, amateurish waste of time that's neither as engrossing, as accurate or as entertaining as the documentary.
Fenton and Bailey should stick with what they
know. This film is rated R for nudity, graphic violence and copious drug
use.
See Video Review of Party
Monster: The Shockumentary