By Simon Thompson
Jon Rhoads and Mike Marrero’s Party Time is a snappy screwball comedy mix of both a heist story and a horror movie. Utilizing a strong 1970s-80s color palette strongly reminiscent of Cassavetes, Carl Reiner, Steven Soderbergh, Rob Reiner, and Martin Scorsese’s 80s comedies such as After Hours and King Of Comedy, the movie is an enthusiastic and well-made endeavor which, sadly, falls a little flat.
Party Time tells the story of a clown couple Pipito and Butterface (Julio Trinidad and Dani Weiner), who use their ridiculous get-up as a front to gain access to children’s birthday parties and similar events so that they can run off with any available loot. Pipito decides that their next heist will be at the expense of a group of occult dabblers, which Butterface desperately tries to talk him out of.
While Party Time succeeds in effectively aping its previously mentioned influences from a visual standpoint, where it fails to come close is that the jokes are far too obvious- in the way that they aren’t when this style of humor is executed successfully. In a masterpiece such as The Man With Two Brains for example, the humor works because you don’t know what outlandish punchline is coming, which helps to set up multiple gags at the same time along the way- until the final surprising comedic payoff takes place.
In Party Time on the other hand, despite a promising opening set-up, I knew exactly what was going to happen to the main characters as soon as Pipito began to talk about how easy robbing the event he is targeting will be, killing any laughs to be had in the build-up stone dead- which is a shame because the short’s enthusiasm is genuinely charming.
To conclude, while Party Time is a well-directed and acted short it is sadly let down by lapses into predictability and easy laughs. Given how strong the short’s visuals are, however, I would love to see what Rhoads and Marrero might be able to pull off with a slightly bigger budget.
Party Time screened as part of Panic Fest 2024.
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