Before this year’s Green Room and 2013’s Blue Ruin, Jeremy Saulnier whipped out his own Reservoir Dogs-styled debut with 2007’s Murder Party.

Lonely loser Christopher S. Hawley planned to spend a quiet Halloween at home with a few VHS tapes and his cat. That was until he stumbled upon a random Halloween invitation: “Murder Party…come alone.”

Yeah, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not taking any piece of card stock up on that offer.

But Christopher S. Hawley is a lonely idiot and and he does just that, but not before making the most low-rent knight costume he can out of cardboard and baking a pumpkin loaf.

What he finds at the party is a bunch of goofy art students dressed in some fun costumes awaiting him at a warehouse, where they will then murder him for their art.

It also turns out Christopher S. Hawley is much cooler and smarter than any of the pretentious fartists at the warehouse. I love Christopher S. Hawely, and I wish we got a little more from him on the character side.

Murder Party is fun and mostly humorous with some moments of gore to delight. Macon Blair’s devilish wolf mask mishap being a highlight. There’s a good amount of Halloween ambiance as well, culminating in a pumpkin filled slaughter-installation.

It definitely feels like a film-school styled debut, but it’s a debut that shows lots of promise, promise the Saulnier has made pretty good on. I didn’t love Murder Party and it does drag a bit, but this is a pretty entertaining horror-lite Halloween comedy treat with a lot of fun scenes to offer.

Plus, if you’ve ever attended art school, or know a bunch of dildos who did/do, you may find their skewering of art school crowd here pretty spot-on.

This one gets a Baseball Fury and a Pumpkin Loaf up.

Designation: Treat