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  • Writer's pictureKelly M. Hudson

Throwing a Monster Party


Where the monsters are all human, baby!

Monster Party (2018) is a little bit home invasion, a whole lot of suspense/thriller, and an ample heaping of gore.


Casper (Sam Strike) has a small crew of two friends who regularly rob upper-middle class houses. They’re fun and sassy about it and very likable as a trio. Well, Casper runs into a problem with his gambling-addicted father, and he has to come up with $10K the next day or his old man is going to be burned alive. Casper devises a plan to rob a terribly rich household using his friends by posing as a servant crew during an exclusive party. Problem for him and his friends? That party is attended solely by recovering murder-addicts (!) and one of them decides it’s time to fall off the wagon. Sam and his friends are trapped in a house full of murderers, and there doesn’t seem to be any getting out without lots of blood being spilled.


Oh, and there’s the…um, thing chained up in the basement.

No Time for Emotions!

Monster Party is the kind of contemporary film that’s fairly cartoonish in style from the very beginning and just gets more and more lunatic as the story unspools. There’s lots of hip camera work and editing that gives it a very light feel while all the time it grows darker and more deranged. There’s bits of Don’t Breathe in here, as well as The Purge and Green Room, but really, this is its own thing, and what it turns out to be is a pretty good time.


The cast is all good (congrats to Kian Lawley for playing one of the biggest douchebags in cinema history, a dude I wanted to see dead the moment I first laid eyes on him) and the villains are despicable. The rich are vain, pompous, arrogant, and full of bloodlust (you know, like in real life); easy to hate and root against, while our heroes aren’t exactly virtuous but scrappy survivors who are easy to cheer for. The blood flies, the gore is pretty thick, and the action is relentless at times. People die and there’s no hesitation or build-up, they’re just slaughtered in about as bloody of a way as possible. Prepare yourself for some very jarring, violent moments. For a movie full of tense, dark themes (rich vs. poor, the nature of addiction, etc.) it sure is a lot of fun.

We're Not Animals

So if you’re in the mood for a suspenseful thriller, buckets of blood, and some sharp, stylized storytelling, you’ve found a brand new film to enjoy. This movie moves, man, bristling with energy and tense, nerve-racking gusto. Monster Party is just that: fun and delightful and dark and gritty. It’s a monster of a good time.


“Good night and God bless!”


Three out of Four Stars


Monster Party is streaming on Shudder




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