Party Monster

Party Monster is a curiosity: a fictionalized version of events already covered in documentary form (see review of Party Monster: The Shockumentary in VL Online-2/04) by this film's same co-directors, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, best known for The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Macaulay Culkin (Home Alone), who returns to film after a decade-long absence, stars as 1980s club kid-turned-killer Michael Alig, a small-town boy who arrives in New York and reinvents himself on the Ecstasy-fueled party scene. Ascending from rube to ringmaster, Alig organizes fabulous happenings, and anoints--in Warhol-like fashion--various transvestites and studly naifs as the era's new superstars, including James St. James (Seth Green), Alig's arch but more reticent co-conspirator and roommate. Green is more grounded in his character than Culkin, though neither actor is convincing as a deluded drag queen, and the directors never remotely show us why Alig was such a compelling figure in Manhattan's social history. Not recommended. (T. Keogh)