Review of "Party Hard, Die Young” by The Headless Critic

Watching Movies – Without Your Head

Party Hard, Die Young – 2019

Production by: Gebhardt Productions,
in association with: Österreichischer Rundfunk
Distribution by: Shudder



Their graduation trip was supposed to be the party of their lives but for this group of friends their party trip turns into a horror trap. A masked killer is after Julia (Elisabeth Wabitsch) and her friends and in order to save their own lives they’re going to have to figure out who’s killing them off and why. Not everyone is returning home from this wild vacation, party hard, die young.

It appears Austria has copied what they’ve seen in U.S.A. slasher films. A papier-mâché masked killer stalks a ton of young adults shaking their bare assets at the camera on the Austrian version of Spring Break. There’s plenty of bikini clad boys and girls to be added to the body count. Director Dominik Hartl has fun killing of his cast including a lot on impaling’s or random objects as these youths party until they die.

Slasher films are a movie dialect that transcends language and country. The brilliantly titled Party Hard, Die Young gives you exactly what you expect from such a movie title. The kills are a good time but with mostly club music and a very Office sounding end song, party scenes of the immense cast of drugged and drunk kids falls victim to what most U.S. horror films do, not focusing enough on its characters to make us care that they’re all dying off. A least I wasn’t rooting for the killer in this one.

Available Now on Shudder

3 out of 5 Headless Critics