While Party Monster is ostensibly a movie about murder, the film nevertheless remains an extremely entertaining account of the rise and fall of New York ’80s club kid Michael Alig (Macaulay Culkin) and his brutal role in the death of Angel, his superstar drug dealer.
The telling of the story is shared between the murderer and his best friend (and original club kid) James St. James (Seth Green). As St. James overdoses on cocaine, Alig informs him that he’s killed their dealer, and from there the narrative unfolds. The setting is the glitzy New York club scene of the late ’80s, and Alig arrives in town as a Midwestern gay teen pursuing dreams of stardom. When he meets St. James, he implores him to teach him how to be cool, and pretty soon Alig becomes the biggest party planner in New York City, his hunger for success matched only by his eventual appetite for drugs.
While the film possesses some obvious flaws (some really poor acting and sloppy editing in parts), the performance of Seth Green (Scott Evil of Austin Powers fame) elevates it to exceptional. His performance as the intelligent yet lazy queen with a trust fund to fuel his excessive tastes borders on brilliant and reveals deep reservoirs of talent that he’s never yet shown on screen. You can actually hear the damage that drugs have done to his nasal passages in the quality of his voice. The strength of Green’s portrayal is unfortunately double-edged. In setting such a high standard, the other players don’t fare as well. Culkin is the obvious victim here-while no one really expects him to be able to act (he hasn’t really had a burgeoning career since he was a child actor in the Home Alone films), his performance is a series of mannerisms and lisps that look exactly as authentic as they are. The former megastar was probably brought on board as a necessary evil for funding purposes, and the film’s stylistic rendition of the past allows us to tolerate his performance somewhat. Marilyn Manson (as Superstar Christina) is hilarious whenever s/he is on screen, and provides some hearty laughs.
Based on the first-hand account Disco Bloodbath by the real James St. James, the film manages to convey the infectious sense of fun that characterized the era, and presents Angel’s murder as simply the natural end to the wildness of the time. While the film is not great, Green’s performance and the strength of the story make it definitely worth seeing.
