Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18237 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-02-10
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Running time: 98 minutes

Amazon.com
Party Monster is a curiosity: a fictional version of events already covered in documentary form (see Party Monster: The Shockumentary) by this film's co-directors, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, best known for The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Party Monster, theatrically released in 2003, also signals the return of Macaulay Culkin to films after a long absence. Culkin plays 1980s club kid-turned-killer Michael Alig, a small-town boy who arrives in New York in search of reinvention on the Ecstasy-fueled party scene. Alig ascends from rube to ringmaster, organizing Fabulous happenings and anointing, in Warhol-like fashion, various transvestites and studly naifs the era's new superstars. Seth Green plays Alig's arch but more reticent co-conspirator and roommate, James St. James. Green is more grounded in character than Culkin, though neither actor is convincing as a deluded drag queen. Despite interesting material, the directors never reveal what makes Alig a compelling figure in Manhattan's social history. --Tom Keogh

From The New Yorker
A superficial and murky tale about the Manhattan party promoter and club-kid king Michael Alig, whose notoriety stems from his participation in the killing of a drug-dealing pal. The co-directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato attempt a fevered glimpse of the trippy drug-saturated parties and the fabulous characters who created them, but their film adds up to little more than a series of lacklustre re-creations. And although the clubbing costumes are a hoot Macaulay Culkin, in the lead role, lacks the childish whimsy that made Alig's crime such a disturbing moment in New York night life. Only Seth Green, who plays Alig's mentor, James St. James, provides the narcissistic chirpiness that made club land so exotically self-destructive. -Bruce Diones
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Parties, fantasy and shock value of indeterminate gender
It looks like the lovable little boy from "Home Alone" has grown up. Macaulay Culkin is now in his early 20s and stars in this outrageous and rather sick story of Michael Alig, a real-life club kid of the early 1990s, who is now serving a long prison term for murder. This 2003 film is not only his story, it is also the story of a time and a place and a world that it no more. It's about parties and fantasy outfits and the shock value of indeterminate gender.. But mostly, it's about a drug culture that catered to these party people, and how it destroyed Alig's life. Culkin does an outstanding acting job in the role, bringing a touch of humanity to the character as well as a great deal of ego and evil.

Based on a book entitled "Disco Bloodbath" by James St. James, who actually lived through these years, the author is a major character in the story. Seth Green is cast in this role and plays it to the hilt, a party person who likes to play but stops short of the excesses that push Alig over the edge. The rest of the cast is full of some of real party people, with Marilyn Manson playing a drag queen.

One of the scary things about this film is how real it feels. The small subculture of partygoers search for thrills, their makeup and clothing screaming for attention. Their brains are addled with drugs and their purpose in life is only to draw attention to themselves. It's fame without substance or meaning and its all mindless. But, with the exception of the Culkin character, their carryings on doesn't really harm anyone but themselves.

I didn't expect to like this film. I almost shut it off after the first 15 minutes. However, it was so intense that I just kept watching. And I was eventually swept into the story and the people and the world that it depicted, a colorful bubble world which inevitably burst and is no more. This film recalls that bubble, including all the horror as well as the fun. Recommended.

You Know The Party's Over When The Drano Comes Out
There really is a Michael Alig and he really is doing time for beating his boyfriend's brains out with a hammer and then, just for good measure, injecting Drano into his veins. (Note that the folks at Drano claim it won't hurt your pipes but say nothing about your circulatory system.)

Though this nightmarish tale is based on a true story, the thrust of it is a surreal view of human emptiness and superficiality, a point most reviewers seem to miss. The Andy Warhol "Factory" set the stage for manufactured people who looked like they might be interesting but were in fact fabricated non-entities, ciphers. That was Warhol's genius, making nothing look like something. The wave of club kids depicted in this movie are just the next generation of thoroughly empty thrill-seekers, gripping onto instant pleasure and making sure to stay one step ahead of fashion. That there is no character insight IS the character insight, that is the point of these little monsters. They are the most extreme manifestation of our hedonism and shallowness.

All of this is revealed by Macaulay Culkin as Alig, who gives a performance that is heroic, fearless, mesmerizing, and chilling all at once. Culkin inhabits Alig, which must have been haunting and sad. He plays Alig as a staggeringly insecure hayseed whose determination to get "inside" is awe-inspiring. Once inside, he becomes grandiose, cruel, and mad, peddling ever faster to maintain the manic illusion of happiness. Culkin's performance could not have soared so high without Seth Green next to him. Green, first in the role of mentor, presents a scaled down version of the same obsession with superficiality, but, amusingly, seems to know it. Increasingly bitter because of Alig's ascent, he nonetheless maintains a certain amount of concern. This is the closest you will come to a human emotion in the film.

On its face one would say that this movie had nothing going for it. The people are repulsive, one must contain one's glee when they self-destruct. The protagonist has absolutely no redeeming qualities. The side of society it illuminates is miserably sad and important only to the extent that it illustrates the illnesses of society at large. And yet, with all that, it is spellbinding viewing. Certainly Culkin's powerhouse performance explains some of it, maybe the rest is attributable to our sheer amazement that such people exist. Be warned, you'll need a strong stomach for this, we're talking Drano, not Pepto.

Fabulous on the Surface
"Party Monster" the movie draws from James St. James' book "Disco Bloodbath" and from film shot for the "Party Monster" shockumentary. The "Party Monster" movie purports to tell the tale of the rise and fall of Michael Alig, using trained actors and screenwriters. There would be adjustments to the story to suit the film market. The results of this are mixed.

Some pieces worked well.

Strengthening the James St. James part (played by Seth Green) brought a hazy character from the shockumentary close to the center of the film. James becomes the drug-addled conscience of the movie. (There is an offsetting loss of Angel Melendez's brother, Johnny, the hero of the shockumentary.)

Using real Club Kids and their actual costumes helped bring enthusiasm and energy to the film.

The Peter Gatien character (Dylan McDermott) was more of a presence in the film than in the shocumentary, giving more background on the economics of hosting the Club Kids.

The role of drugs in Alig's downfall was made clearer in the movie.

There was a downside too.

I just can't believe this Michael Alig (played by Macaulay Culkin) would be able to convice Peter Gatien to give him a chance. The real Michael Alig of the shockumentary (charismatic even behind bars) had the charm and drive to pull it off.

While frequently showing Michael Alig, James St. James and others camping it up, the film takes too much care not to show Michael Alig acting on his homosexual drives. On his way to giving a first date kiss to DJ Keoki (Wilmer Valderrama) inside a garbage dumpster (don't ask), the camera cuts to skyrockets. Michael and James dance once and touch carefully, but that's all. In the shockumentary, Michael is arrested at his new boyfriend's place in New Jersey. In the movie he and girlfriend gitsie (Chloe Sevigny) take a bubble bath together, deep kiss, and are spooning as the police arrive. Mustn't frighten the audience.

The death, disposal, and investigation of Angel Melendez (Wilson Cruz) were more complete and understandable in the shockumentary, although the film showed enough for me. Freez was scarier in the shockumentary. Cruz did a convincing job.

Michael Alig has skin shots; there are discrete skin flashes from some Club Kids.

There is an ok directors' commentary and brief actor interviews.

If you really want to know what happened, read the book or see the shockumentary. If you want to see a focused story, this movie is all right. Also, if you like Seth Green here, take a look at "The Attic Expeditions."