Scream might be the most iterated horror formula out there. Ever since Wes Craven’s masterpiece shook the horror world in 1996, everyone was trying to out-Scream Scream. Scribe Kevin Williamson tried to outdo himself with both I Know What You Did Last Summer and The Faculty. Germany dipped into the slasher pool with The Pool. Jamie Blanks helmed both Urban Legend and Valentine, two slasher classics indebted to Scream. The 1990s were something else if you were a slasher fan.
And then the trend died. Grittier horror movies took over, supplanting the fun of the previous decade with the gravitas of a new millennium. There were remakes and adaptations, found footage, and imported scares. For a period, the horror genre struggled to find a consistent identity, but generally, slashers were out. Eventually, they came back, including Scream itself, and audiences are now in the midst of a new wave of clever, metatextual slasher movies. One of the best riffs on the Scream formula is a slasher you probably haven’t seen. Now that the film is streaming on Shudder, do yourself a favor and start the party.
Per Shudder: School’s out, so Julia, her friends and thousands of fellow graduates are on their way to an island resort in Croatia, and it’s supposed to be the party of their lives! The harmless fun soon turns deadly serious when Julia’s friend is killed, and it probably wasn’t an accident. Slick, stylish, and loud, Party Hard, Die Young is in the tradition of the best post-Scream slashers.
Even the official Shudder synopsis spotlights the film’s post-Scream origins. Many have tried, but few have updated and iterated upon the formula quite so successfully as Dominik Hartl’s take. Scripted by Robert Buchschwenter and Karin Lomot, Party Hard, Die Young retains Scream’s oft-forgotten brutality alongside earnest character work and a solid murder mystery at its core. After all, Scream is, if nothing else, a murder mystery.
Writing about the film last year, I wrote, “The kills are exceptional, the cast fantastic, and the Croatian seaside setting elevates the subgenre’s more conventional elements. There’s plenty of bloodshed here to appeal to even the most hardened slasher fans.” As we shift from Spring to Summer in the coming months, there are few ways to commemorate the new season as thrilling as Party Hard, Die Young.
What do you think? Any plans to check out Party Hard, Die Young on Shudder? Let me know if you plan to get the party started on Twitter @Chadiscollins.
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