CAST PARTY

Directed by Aaron Michael Garcia

From almost the very beginning, I knew I was in for a rough ride with Cast Party. Directed by Aaron Garcia in his first feature-length outing, it follows a Community Theater cast & crew as they get together to celebrate the conclusion of their latest production. More or less, there's not much else to it.

Don't get me wrong, completing a feature film on a proposed budget of $12,000 is a difficult task, and one that should certainly be celebrated as few can do it. That being said, I'm very curious to know where exactly that budget went.

The film opens promisingly with a nice vlog-style introduction to the cast of the theater company, but immediately slows itself down with an extended credit sequence that does nothing but bring itself to a steeping halt before we're introduced to a single character. It did not help at all that the first lines of the film's dialogue upon meeting our first two cast members were extremely muffled and inaudible. This was not a great sign for things to come.

The real standouts among an ensemble WAY TOO BIG at a film of this level were Devin Tillis (Austin) & Alexandra Schmid (Tabitha). I really enjoyed the performances from these two, and look forward to seeing what they do next. Beyond this, it was near impossible for the other players to make any kind of impression due to some bizarre editing & cinematography choices made throughout. Granted, the soundtrack was incredibly enjoyable, and definitely helped move things along.

Despite Cast Party being a huge miss for me, I truly admire Garcia for taking on this project. With this only being his first foray into feature filmmaking, I can certainly see his talent & the overall ambition sprinkled throughout the film. Unfortunately, poor production value and a bloated cast/runtime really hinder it. I can definitely see this being trimmed down to make a fun, 30-minute (or less) short film, but there's little here to justify it's length as a feature.

Rating: 4/10

-DJ Ford