Garden Party Massacre (2018) – Where’s the F**king Crudités Platter – A Fitz of Horror Review

May 21, 2019 Gothic Bob Off Horror

Synopsis- A gathering of friends goes awry when an uninvited guest appears. With a pickaxe. And an attitude.

I love intelligent comedies. I love light-hearted horror…because it’s a thing and it’s great. There’s one thing I love more than any of that and that is good, biting sarcasm. Garden Party Massacre is all of that, and a bag of chips with the dip. You know you’re a great writer when you have so much entertainment happen all within the confines of a single set, like in Clue. Then you have the premise of the story, so simple and about almost nothing, become a piece of entertainment. The issue I always took with Seinfeld’s tagline, “a show about nothing”, was that it was about something. It is about the characters and the sheer ridiculousness that they’d find themselves in! Garden Party Massacre knocks that out of the park.

GPM opens with Caleb (Andy Gates) and Addison (Nichole Bagby), a lovely little couple who live in a predictable suburbian hell. OK, maybe it’s just purgatory. They’re planning a little bbq with friends that apparently annoy each other’s partner, as if they didn’t annoy one another enough. There’s friends Reena (Lise Hart), Melanie (Dawna Lee Heising), Wesley (David Leeper) and then there’s “Linc”, one of my favorite parts of the movie because of the material alone, who is the questionably gay date of Wesley. Linc is played by Writer/Producer/Director Gregory Blair, himself. Lots of innuendos here and “clue-like” detective work, to try to figure his sexuality. The dialogue is great! It gets even more ridiculous when Melanie tries to crash that date. The whole dynamic of the movie starts from the get-go with Addison showing her frustrations while preparing for the party. In fact, she and Caleb are so comically miserable about each other and their friends, seemingly mutual friends at that, one wonders why they even bother in the first place?! It’s sunny out and we all have friends like this, so it’s all fun and games (or bitching and moaning) until an uninvited hack-n-slash killer shows up. At this point, you’ll wonder who is more relentless…Melanie or killer Randy (Matt Weinglass).

Nichole Bagby, as Addison in Garden Party Massacre, wants you to know that she’s had enough of this shit!

The absolute best thing about Garden Party Massacre aside from the absolutely ridiculous, twisting and “wait, there’s more” storyline, which I wouldn’t dream of spoiling for you, is the characters. They’re all organic and relatable. So even when one might get to the point of “oh man, I wish they’d just off this one already” you find that you’d probably root for them even if a zombie onslaught broke out. Wait…what?! Does that happen?

The next time you’re thinking of having a party (indoors, probably) and inviting the friends over, have Garden Party Massacre handy because this is exactly the kind of movie you’d use to entertain at such a thing. It is, ironically, the perfect social-gathering party movie. Get out the peanut butter glazed celery, carrots, bread and dill dip because Garden Party Massacre aims to be the conversation piece.