Majandra Delfino in R.S.V.P.

Thanks to Mr. Galluzzo (Director/Producer) of the movie, for sending this in

August 2, 2002 ARTS THE PROVIDENCE PHOENIX

Coming attractions

BY BILL RODRIGUEZ

R.S.V.P.-Sunday, August 11 at 5 p.m. at the Columbus Cinematheque.

Although it plays with the conventions and expectations of slasher flicks, R.S.V.P. is too much into being a light-hearted send-up of the genre to get into the gore. Yes, someone’s head is plunged into a pot of boiling water, but the reluctant victim who surfaces for a moment doesn’t even look sunburned.

Homage and spoof do a little dance of death here. Straight out of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, we have a missing guest of honor dead in a chest, as friends joke and party around him in a parlor. And as in Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians, the assembled are picked off one by one. Inspired by the serial killers he is studying in criminal psych class, Nick Collier (Rick Otto) is eager to prove his superiority by committing a mass murder that he figures he can pin on someone else. As a bonus, he’ll teach a lesson to pretty Jordon (Brandi Andres), who dumped him for an ill-fated pal.

Writer/director Mark Anthony Galluzzo does right by his opportunities, dinging and tooting all the right filmic bells and whistles. “Night on Bald Mountain” builds tension at just the right pace. A huge, blazing neon sign atop the apartment house provides an evocative backdrop for tense talk and a climatic rooftop chase. No wonder R.S.V.P. got the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at this year’s Sundance-fringe Slamdunk Festival.