Film Review - The Dinner Party (2020)

Two guests in hope of impressing their supposedly connected host arrive at a beautiful estate upon being invited to a secretive dinner party following the weird instructions of not telling anyone that they’re actually there. The obscure rules of attendance are a deliberate smokescreen for the guests whom are in for a rough night.

This is only the beginning of what makes little sense throughout a blood-soaked flesh-eating night of telling stories, drawing cards, describing opera scenarios around potential witchcraft and cannibalism.

Arrogant playwright Jeff (Mike Mayhall) and meek wife Haley (Alli Hart) are immediately taken by surprise entering the elegant mansion by an assortment of strange persons all ready for a feast and would be rituals.

Without revealing too much for those with an appetite (pun intended) for heartless independent horror, both Jeff and Haley are drugged and their bogus hosts begin a round of individual fantasies or what i saw as convoluted reactions.

Voluptuous Salem admirer Sadie as played by Lindsay Anne Williams displays somewhat inspired character arcs and looks immaculate with adventurous hair and select outfits (costumes she designed herself).

As waif like as she is powerful, Alli Hart puts everything into her eventual lead role of Haley.
I’d like to know how many yellow dresses were destroyed in the making of this film.

Everyone else is just a barrel of terrible acting including the great Bill Sage (Simple Men, American Psycho) awful.

At least writer / director / star Miles Doleac has a crack at shock value with dark comedy, however when characters say dumb things like ‘the only thing that makes me hornier than a beautiful woman is a corpse’; the bar is set low.