House Party (1990)

This is a wacky little flick that I saw during 7th grade in class. Lots of forced comedy and wild dialog, but entertaining at certain points. Plenty of my classmates loved it, but I thought it was pretty average though. Grade C

House Party is a light, entertaining teen comedy with an infectious energy.The 5.7 rating from the users of IMDb and the 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes critics is scary. Maybe it's because this classic is pretty dated and doesn't have the "modern" or "cool" things most rap movies have nowadays.But anyways, Kid 'N Play are a surprising great acting team (as well as rapping team). The writing is good and the energy brought by the cast is amazing. The music will be stuck in your head for days. And the dance sequence is probably the best of the '90s.And ever since I saw this movie, I've been listening to a lot of Kid 'N Play songs, and watched all 4 movies.

Released in 99% white Australia at the height of the warehouse dance party wave, this hilarious all black hip hop indie rang true to us neon shirted whities who could have our own moment of 'rock around the clock style new wave dance madness' by actually dancing in the aisles of the cinema. And what a crummy cinema it was....the Mandolin in Sydney was the mangy red velvet 60s beatnik cinema that was a converted 1930s radio theater. Perfect! I think that night we went to the movies and saw Kid'n'Play's HOUSE PARTY and appropriately went to an all night dance party in a warehouse nearby with 5000 others who secretly knew it was on (yes 5000 others) and like in HOUSE PARTY, you had to know it was on in there.... so we got to see the movie and cross/culture/shift and relive the experience to the same music. HOUSE PARTY like that night is a moment in time, part of the hilarious reckless nights we have all had in the late 80s (see the great tiny1982 indie Oz pic GOING DOWN for proof) ... to new music with hilarious friends and dance tracks that allowed you to dance with 15 different people. I know there were sequels but by then the time had gone and the dance parties were full of bad drugs and bonehead behavior. HOUSE PARTY is the bookend to PARTY MONSTER.. the incredible lavish and absolutely bullseye moment of the 90s captured on film in 2003 with Macauley Culkin and Seth Green. It would be horrifying fun to see these films together in one sitting to identify the night it started and the night it stopped. I suppose it is the same idea wondering how we got from "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" to "When I Think Of You I Touch Myself". Yes HOUSE PARTY is the innocent side of the coke chopping razor and PARTY MONSTER is the harsh sunlight of next morning.

House Party is sort of like a urban take on Risky Business in the sense that boy has party when parents go out of town for the weekend but the comparison end there. Kid and Play make one of the first hip hop films of the nineties which had a plot. Many young black comedic actors got their start in this film like Martin Lawerence and AJ Johnson. But the true comedic talent in the film is the late Robin Harris. The world only knows what Harris could have done. The script is smart and the direction by Regiland Hudlin is good.