With a short 57-minute running time calculated for TV timeslots, this documentary was partially financed by Cinemax and UK's Channel 4. Staged simulations are smoothly integrated with legit footage to jigsaw together a portrait of Michael Alig, serving time for manslaughter when this film was made. Waving goodbye to South Bend, Indiana, Alig arrived in NYC, became a college dropout, and developed a reputation for promoting parties during the '80s. The Alig parties featured bizarre costumes, performance art, and a sexual slant, but they eventually began going haywire with wild drug use/abuse of heroin, crack, and animal tranquilizers, prompting the law to take note. In early 1996, drug dealer Angel Melendez vanished, and a corpse later turned up floating near Staten Island; months later, Alig and a roommate were arrested. To recount the grim details, filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato interviewed Alig in prison, combining this with both party videos and footage of Alig associates. Shown at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
Review
Gripping and silly in equal measure, this documentary is arguably more entertaining than the filmmakers' later feature of the same name. Without Macaulay Culkin to stand in for him, club kid-turned-murder Michael Alig faces the camera both before and after his conviction for the killing of drug dealer Angel Melendez. The result is like a year's worth of Jerry Springer episodes crammed into a single can't-miss hour. From home movies of Alig during his ketamine-snorting heyday to interview footage of his trashy, baffled mother, Party Monster amply chronicles the druggy, fame-for-fame's-sake ethos that powered New York club life during the rave years. Along the way, it gives camera time to all sorts of marginal cases without ever asserting any prefab moral viewpoint. Sadly enough, the burned-out remnants of the club-kid scene are still willing to talk about Alig as long as it gives them a spot in the limelight (if not the Limelight). Filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato may pad their already short documentary with cheesy reenactments, but it's hard to dismiss the traffic-accident magnetism of interview subjects like the former Alig hanger-on who tries to promote a 12-inch dance single inspired by the murder. The feature-film version may be hipper and wittier, but this documentary shows the whole sick scene like it really went down. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Cast
Michael Alig - Himself
Credit
Gabriel Rotello - Associate Producer, Fenton Bailey - Director, Randy Barbato - Director, Tim Attzinger - Editor, Scott Gamzon - Editor, Sheila Nevins - Executive Producer, Robin Gutch - Executive Producer, Joe Carrano - Composer (Music Score), Jamie McEwen - Cinematographer, Fenton Bailey - Producer, Randy Barbato - Producer
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