I realize that most of these reviews default to comparing RSVP to Rope; a film which I've seem but much too long ago for this review to be any sort of comparison. Instead I'll discuss this film on it's own terms.
There's a lot of really fun stuff going on in the beginning with the pseudo-intellectual conversations about murder as a sort of art form, initially leading me to believe I was in for a very clever sort of slasher film. RSVP fails to deliver, mostly because the writer couldn't substantiate all the clever banter with any sort of compelling story. Perhaps it's different since we're well aware of who the killer is from the beginning, but this potential is never maximized. Instead the film turns into a fairly generic slasher except the audience doesn't even have the pleasure of trying to piece together who the killer really is.
What kills RSVP is that it starts out as a somewhat interesting meditation of serial killers and murder, and degenerates quickly into the standard fare of drinking, drugs, etc. No suspense is built because it quickly becomes evident how our killer is operating. There needed to be some kind of payoff near the end, but all we get is another jilted youth. All of his musings on murder amount to nothing by the end of the film, and however interesting the killer may have seemed in the beginning, he's just another idiot who loses control by the end. I give it a 4 for keeping me pretty interested for the first half, but midway through the 2nd act my mind wanders.
There's a lot of really fun stuff going on in the beginning with the pseudo-intellectual conversations about murder as a sort of art form, initially leading me to believe I was in for a very clever sort of slasher film. RSVP fails to deliver, mostly because the writer couldn't substantiate all the clever banter with any sort of compelling story. Perhaps it's different since we're well aware of who the killer is from the beginning, but this potential is never maximized. Instead the film turns into a fairly generic slasher except the audience doesn't even have the pleasure of trying to piece together who the killer really is.
What kills RSVP is that it starts out as a somewhat interesting meditation of serial killers and murder, and degenerates quickly into the standard fare of drinking, drugs, etc. No suspense is built because it quickly becomes evident how our killer is operating. There needed to be some kind of payoff near the end, but all we get is another jilted youth. All of his musings on murder amount to nothing by the end of the film, and however interesting the killer may have seemed in the beginning, he's just another idiot who loses control by the end. I give it a 4 for keeping me pretty interested for the first half, but midway through the 2nd act my mind wanders.