Camp can be wildly entertaining when utilized effectively, but Party Monster turns camp affectation into lurid displays of violence and becomes a case of too much growing tedious. It’s all crazy pageantry of costumes, trying to establish a style and relish in it, and offering not much of substance to chew on about a real-life case that was fascinating, and a scene that was even more interesting. Party Monster manages to make the Club Kids look ugly and bothersome more than anything else.
Thankfully, Party Monster has a strong lead performance in Seth Green as James St. James, portraying him as a self-deluded, grandiose variation of Oscar Wilde, only pumped full of designer drugs and ornate costuming. He manages to find and continuously strike the delicate balance between camp and pathos that none of the other actors can manage. I would call it a star making performance, but Green had been consistently working in television and films since he was a child.
Macaulay Culkin was trying to make a comeback and move away from his child star image around this time, so a role like Michael Alig and a project like Party Monster seemed like a great idea to complete both of these tasks. While Culkin was incredibly attractive around this time, he was also less confident in the actual performance. He never finds his footing, only skimming the surface and preferring to strike poses and deliver his lines in a put upon cadence than developing a real character. The contrast between Culkin’s work and Green’s is night and day. One of them is giving a thought-out development of the character and the other is merely playing dress-up.
But maybe the greatest sin of the film isn’t just its over indulgence in theatrics with no real payoff, but that it makes everything look ugly. Even before the preordained fall of these stories, the Club Kids and their nirvana of strange parties and dancefloors never seemed particularly inviting or exciting. It just looks muted and garish. And the film never gives us a clearer point-of-view besides trying out a faux-documentary approach from time-to-time. Highlighting some of the absurdity of the case would have been better, or going from day-glo Wonderland to a garish paradise lost would have been more effective. Anything other than hammering home the fact that too much of something is bad for you and needlessly tedious.