Review: Monster Party satiates our thirst for bloodlust

A rabid dog finally breaking free from his iron-wrought cage, Julian McMahon’s Patrick Dawson licks his chops, an appetite for curdled flesh pulsing in his stomach, and spits through his teeth: “I’m ready to make the Dawsons great again!” The slogan that has permeated every corner of American culture for three years is injected with even more gutting relevance, as the onscreen violence bares a striking resemblance to the evening news. McMahon’s gleefully twisted smile is enough to send a shockwave of chills down your spine, tingling your own disturbing bloodlust for gore, bottom-feeding scum and depraved brutality. And, boy, does Shudder’s new exclusive Monster Party ⏤  a brisk 90-minute blood-splattered jamboree written and directed by Chris von Hoffmann (Drifter), whose craftsmanship perfects the typical heist-gone-wrong sub-genre with delightful relish ⏤ offer up a taut storyline of three transient 20-somethings seeking a way out of the ho-hum of middle America.

Virginia Gardner (Halloween 2018) plays the bubbly, hopeful and pregnant Iris (she’s two-months along) who works a day job in catering in between various money-grabbing capers. Her ever-compassionate and supportive boyfriend Dodge, Brandon Michael Hall (CBS hit God Friended Me) possesses an endearing magnetism that works to counterbalance his dude Casper’s (Sean Strike, whose credits include Leatherface and Nightflyers) neuroticism and unhinged desperation to help his father climb out of debt and from under the thumb of a fiendish, despicable club owner. Together, they not only blur the lines of morality but they lure you into the thrill ride of your life.

Once Casper sets his sights on the Dawson Family’s seemingly-bottomless well of wealth, he coaxes Iris and Dodge into playing fake servants for a lavish dinner party that turns out to be more than they bargained for ⏤ a support group meeting for reformed murderers. Unwittingly, Casper sets off the house security system and mayhem and satisfyingly-grotesque mutilation falls like dominos right into his lap. Dawson matriarch Roxanne is portrayed with unsettling subtlety by Robin Tunney, whose face you’ll surely recognize from her work in 1996’s The Craft, and right from the outset, her performance is psychologically-frayed and frightful and gives you pause on the addictive quality of killing, a theme explored right on the surface. Daughter Alexis (Erin Moriarty, known for her work on Jessica Jones) further unties those threads, often wavering between upholding her familial duties and her own devotion to breaking the cycle. Even the underlying “dog” storyline, which boils over quite nicely in the third act, begs the question: is murder ingrained in the DNA as much as any other addiction?

Such secondary players as Kian Lawley (whose Elliot Dawon is both primally-sexual and coldly-detached), Chest Rushing (the daft Cameron) and Jamie Ward (as the perversely-intriguing drug addict named Jeremy) operate to punctuate the film’s sleek humor while splicing apart its surrounding savagery. The cast, as a whole, rounded out with Diego Boneta (Ollie), Lance Reddick (the cultish leader and support group beacon Milo) and others, bounces off one another with nimble writing and dialogue that never veers too far into the outlandish. It’s a glorious 90-minute popcorn flick imbued with heart without taking itself so serious to be deflating, and the final act of redemption is just downright rewarding.

Monster Party is out now on Shudder.

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