At the height of his unprecedented fame as a child star in the early ‘90s, Macaulay Culkin landed his share of controversial roles that were worlds away from his mischievous adolescent in Home Alone. Any character that made even the smallest crack in his cute kid image drew intense scrutiny, whether it was playing an allergic boy meeting an untimely end in My Girl or a sociopathic bad seed in The Good Son. Those aforementioned films were juvenile in comparison to his portrayal as drug-addicted party promoter Michael Alig in 2003’s Party Monster.
Based on James St. James’s 1999 memoir Disco Bloodbath, Party Monster depicts the self-destruction of the leader of the Club Kids, whose excessive drug use led to the murder of fellow roommate Andre “Angel” Melendez. Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato were no strangers to provocative material, having directed the 1998 documentary of the same name featuring Alig’s accounts from prison of the turbulent time. The campy surrealism used to visualize the environment where Alig and pal James St. James were slammed by professional critics, holding a 29% rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes. But even in Roger Ebert’s negative review, the legendary critic singled out Culkin for his “fearless” portrayal of Alig.
What Is ‘Party Monster’ About?
Party Monster’s salacious tale is told in the meta fourth-wall-breaking of Alig (Culkin) and St. James (Seth Green). Both young men share humble beginnings in Middle America before discovering their identities in New York City’s nightlife scene. St. James in particular brings Alig into his circle early on, adopting colorful but unconventional styles of fashion and ambiguous promiscuity. Alig’s antics initially run afoul of The Limelight club owner Peter Gatien (Dylan McDermott), only to turn the debt on its head into a big money draw as Limelight’s hottest attraction.
As the Club Kids expands nationwide with new additions, Gitsie (Chloë Sevigny), Brooke (Natasha Lyonne), and Angel (Wilson Cruz), things become increasingly chaotic as Alig and St. James’s drug abuse escalates. Alig gets torn between his attraction to Gitsie and Superstar DJ Keoki (Wilmer Valderrama) while Gaiten becomes the target of an investigation into his business. Only after Alig viciously murders Angel does St. James have a crisis of conscience about his fellow Club Kid.
Though Angel’s murder becomes a driving force of the narrative late in the picture, Party Monster is treated as a social study of affluence and the need for acceptance in a bubble that accepts the weird as culturally sublime. Similar to ‘80s excess tales Less Than Zero and Billionaire Boys Club, Party Monster refuses to celebrate the self-absorbed young people seeking fame, nor does it punch down on them either. Directors Bailey and Barbato photograph the picture documentary style on digital video, not only to put the viewer in the middle of the commotion but also to see the hyperstylized world through Alig and St. James’s drug-induced state. Ultimately, the character study aspect of the tale leaves the judgment of the kids’ actions to the audience.
Macaulay Culkin Shreds His Child Star Image in ‘Party Monster’
Culkin’s performance as Alig comes nine years after his last major film. At age 23, he looks physically the same as he did in his last kids movie, Richie Rich, at age 14. Party Monster, by every measure, shatters Culkin’s wholesome image by showcasing Alig’s frequent drug overdoses, provocative cross-dressing, and implied bisexuality. Despite being worlds away from Home Alone’s Kevin McAllister, the boyish charm that made Culkin a star manages to work in an eerie fashion in Party Monster because Alig carries a naive air of buoyance, no matter how dire his situation is. Even when apprehended and interrogated by the authorities about Angel’s murder, Alig just sits across the table with a lollipop and a smirk reminiscent of Culkin’s smart-aleck child characters.
A controversial movie like Party Monster allows Culkin to perform fully unrestrained, with Bailey and Barbato directing the actor in challenging scenes that shred anything left of his child star years. For instance, the graphic depiction of Angel’s murder at the hands of Alig and roommate Frez (Justin Hagan) is the one time in the movie where Culkin isn’t having fun but is completely remorseless and detached from any part of his humanity. Unlike The Good Son, where he was portrayed as a scheming evil kid without killing anyone on screen, Culkin gets to be stone-cold vicious here in his doped-up state.
The outrageous nature of Party Monster can be a lot to stomach in its graphic depictions of New York’s underground club scene. But Culkin proves he can still have a spark in the eye as an adult actor while perfectly embodying a grown man with a mindset stuck in arrested development.
Party Monster is streaming on Prime Video in the U.S.
