THE DINNER PARTY

The opening of Scott Murden's horror-thriller and its official site -proudly state that this is "inspired by true events".

And with that in mind, THE DINNER PARTY provides some serious food for thought.

From the opening, it's a dark and disorientating ride. Silhouettes suggest deception from the start, and then we're straight into witnessing our hostess for the next 88 minutes - Angela (Lara Cox) - getting interviewed by the police about some serious shit that has gone down at her home earlier that evening.

Murden then reverses time so we can trace events from the start of this bizarre spiral. A group of friends are invited to attend a dinner party hosted by Angela.

The first friend we meet is computer nerd Matthew (Sam Lyndon), who learns that Angela is planning to commit suicide at the party. So, yeah, he's going to get himself there to witness that ...

Meanwhile, as if we ever doubted Angela's intentions, we follow her on a visit to a dodgy drug-dealer mate to buy some heroin. She and friend Maddy (Jessica Turner) are a little perturbed by the dealer's horror stories about the drug, but Angela buys a shitload of it anyway - despite having to ask him how she actually injects it.

Naturally, as they leave, Maddy is starting to have concerns about her friend. Not so much about the harm the drug could cause, but whether Angela's bought enough of the stuff to ensure that she and her beau Joel (Ben Seton) can successfully overdose!

The films biggest mistake is that it takes too long to get to the actual dinner party. Murden employs exposition without actually revealing anything worthy about his guests, so it's all pretty redundant fare. But, fortunately, when we finally get to the party itself, it's all good stuff.

Some guests have reservations, others have secrets. But this Angela's gig - and it all becomes extremely tense once the settings are all filled. It's her final curtain call ... and the tension arises from the fact that the guests have been very carefully selected indeed ...

The drawn-out build-up suggests that Murden's film may have worked better as a short film, but as it stands it just about scrapes through as an enjoyable, challenging and ultimately melancholic feature debut. I enjoyed it.

And, considering Cox is best known on these shores for the trite TV series "Heartbreak High", I was impressed by the depth of her performance.

Shot for $200,000.00, THE DINNER PARTY excels by virtue of low key drama and a keen focus on characterisation rather than grand set-pieces. It works all the better for it. There is a quirkiness and therefore believability about Australian dramas that always makes them watchable, and THE DINNER PARTY is no exception to that rule.

Obviously it helps that Murden is a good director, allowing his actors space to breathe and round out their characters while letting the story unfold naturally, in an unforced manner. This approach becomes all the more effective once the ante is upped in the films second half.

THE DINNER PARTY is presented in anamorphic widescreen and looks very good indeed. The presentation is a crisp, clean one that makes it difficult to say anything negative about it. Why would you want to anyway? So long as it doesn't distract from the drama (which it doesn't, it's fine) who cares?

English audio is provided in 2.0 and 5.1 mixes. Both are stable, well-balanced and efficient propositions.

The disc opens with a nice animated main menu page that spits out enticing titbits of tense clips from the main feature for our delectation.

From there, a static scene-selection menu allows access to THE DINNER PARTY via 10 chapters.

The only extras on the disc are a highly engaging, reasonably informative commentary track from Murden and a decent 2-minute trailer for the main feature.

THE DINNER PARTY feels small scale but is no less enjoyable for it. No doubt it'll get overlooked by many, but I reckon it's a worthy way of spending an evening in. It's definitely worth a rent, possibly even a cheap buy.

Review by Stu Willis