PARTY MONSTER

Slashed from real life, this is the story of Michael Alig, the Manhattan club kid who injected a drug-dealing chum with Drano, chopped him up, dumped him into the East River, and giddily assumed he could get away murder.

CAST: Macaulay Culkin, Seth Green, Dylan McDermott, Marilyn Manson, Chloe Sevigny, Natasha Lyonne, Diana Scarwid

DIRECTORS: Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato

"Mr. Culkin, blessed by nature with the kind of lips middle-aged actresses pay good money for, has the look of a reedy, needy manchild set loose in a druggy never-never land. His performance is earnest and brave, but also mannered when it should be un-self-conscious, and awkward when grace is called for. His whispery, giggly diction is both overly theatrical and insufficiently bold: Alig's whiny, clingy insecurity comes through, but his allegedly devastating charm is only postulated…Like its title character, ‘Party Monster’ is ultimately too self-involved to care about anyone else." --A.O. Scott, The New York Times

"Michael Alig, the movie's subject, looks innocent with his baby face and cute little outfits, but he is a creature of bird-brained vanity. After the drugs take over he becomes not merely dangerous but deadly… Alig is played by Macaulay Culkin, and it is a fearless performance as a person so shallow, narcissistic and amoral that eventually even his friends simply stare at him in disbelief…Seth Green is more dimensional and reachable as James, but it is Culkin's oblivious facade that makes him scary; any attempt to bring ‘humanity’ to this character would miss the point…The movie lacks insight and leaves us feeling sad and empty--sad for ourselves, not Alig--and maybe it had to be that way." --Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

"There’s really only one reason to see ‘Party Monster,’ and that’s Seth Green’s scene-stealing performance…It’s a performance that could have easily been reduced to mannerisms and wisecracks, but Green turns it into something witty, layered; you want the camera to stay on him…The film was meant to be Macaulay Culkin’s triumphant career comeback, an outré role that would prove not only that the former ‘Home Alone’ cherub has acting chops, but that he also possesses a willingness to push the envelope. But with his arms akimbo, a mincing walk and a watery Bette Davis accent, he’s simply a host of fag clichés draped over a void." --Ernest Hardy, LA Weekly

"Long after he was a child star in such movies of the moment as ‘Home Alone,’ Macaulay Culkin still can't act, and it's no longer cute. His performance in ‘Party Monster’ is so embarrassing one doesn't know where to look. (Well, perhaps at the exit.)…The happy surprise of the movie is Seth Green, known for playing Dr. Evil's estranged son, Scott Evil, in the ‘Austin Powers’ movies. Green plays Alig crony James St. James with just the right mix of charm, egocentrism and swishy fabulousness that the era of club-hopping in the 1980s and early '90s demanded." --Jami Bernard, The New York Daily News

"Green — best known for playing Mike Myers' son in the ‘Austin Powers’ movies — handily walks away with the movie, thanks to his funny and flamboyant St. James...Culkin may be 24, but he still seems in the throes of the sort of awkward adolescence that dooms so many child stars. He minces, twitters and bats his eyelashes with courageous abandon, but it's difficult to believe his self-absorbed Alig would turn his father-figure Gatien over to the cops — much less brutally murder someone." --Lou Lumenick, The New York Post

"'Party Monster,' the just-for-laughs true story of a nasty little clique of drug-addled New York club kids who murder one of their own, dismember the corpse and then brag about it relentlessly, is another of those films that leaves you with the perennial question: ‘Who paid for this garbage?’…The pathetic Alig character and his equally unappetizing sidekick, James St. James (Seth Green), are trapped in a love-hate tussle for media attention. But whatever genuine ties the pair had in reality are left unexplored here…‘Party Monster’ has Chloe Sevigny as one of Alig's best friends and Marilyn Manson as a transsexual club fixture. TV's Dylan McDermott plays a one-eyed club owner. All are instantly and deeply unlikable." --Fred Shuster, Los Angeles Daily News

"As played by Macaulay Culkin in a surprising performance, Alig is pushy and obnoxious, someone capable of saying the most horrible thing he can think of at any given moment and making them sound funny. He commands every scene he's part of, bullying St. James and everyone else into doing his bidding while pursuing an existence comprised mostly of decadent pursuits…as accurate and fact-based as "Party Monster" may be, it's hard to watch, mostly because these people seem so depressingly empty. Yes, Culkin does a deadly impression of Alig, with his snotty hauteur and perpetual sneer. He's great to look at, but when Alig stars talking, he reveals just how childish his vision is. Who would want to enter his world, even for a mere 97 minutes?" --Marshall Fine, The Journal News

"Evidently, Barbato and Bailey scripted their demiurge with Macaulay Culkin in mind, impressed with his tween-sploit turn in ‘The Good Son.’ So sad then, that their quintessential bad seed makes such a rotten fruit. From his first direct-address declarative burst, the robotically ‘gay’ Culkin telegraphs cluelessness. Alig, an obnoxiously charming Indiana-bred busboy who latched onto celebutantes like drag-darling James St. James, was a thirsty sponge, absorbing the minutiae of low-rent socialite protocol. Culkin's bitchy 'tude often seems a mix of self-congratulation and coasting." --Nancy Sinagra, The Village Voice

"Re-creating a cultural burp based on excess and nihilism requires a certain amount of excess and nihilism. ‘Party Monster’ delivers…Culkin -- who knows something about the vagaries of celebrity -- and Green, best known for the ‘Austin Powers’ movies, play the only characters who are developed to any real degree and their assortment of vocal tics, nervous laughs and over-the-top ‘nancy-ness’ often are very funny and appropriately giddy… the reality of ‘Party Monster’ is that the oh-so-chic club scene it doesn't quite celebrate was really the hipster's equivalent of ‘Hollywood Squares.’" --John Anderson, Newsday