Hot Box

Everyone has that one party that ascends into legend, regaled amongst friend groups long after the days of debauchery leaves them behind. Hot Box is a multi-branching comedy that follows the odd-ball attendees at house party that is on the verge of swerving out of control onto the road to infamy.

The feature follows a number of different friends who have all arrived at the party for wildly differing reasons. There’s the group of goth girls who believe a serial killer is stalking the night out for his next victim, the religious society trying to steer party-goers from their sinful ways, the sex-deprived guys who are convinced a porn star is in attendance, and the guy who is freaking out that his boss is organising drug tests the next day. Their stories inevitably end up colliding and colluding, making the party a night to remember for all of them.

Following in the footsteps of Dazed and Confused, Superbad and American Pie, Hot Box is a fun and lively attempt to capture the fleeting madness of partying in your teens and twenties. It is suitably filled with energy, consisting of quickfire storylines, eccentric characters and enjoyable misdirects that mean audiences will be seldom bored whilst watching. Rhiness has a fantastic sense of when to hold back from wackiness or vulgarity, and when to ramp it up to escalate the layered, yet mostly relatable predicaments.

Some of the storylines are a little out-there. The religious group who’ve ventured into the party solely to preach the good word stretch credibility, and their presence feels like it is for the filmmakers to take shots at the low-hanging fruit of evangelism that has been hit far more effectively in high school movies since the dawn of time. Their persistence and childlike ignorance lead to a few laughs, and Mary (Elizabeth Chamberlain) acts as something of a protagonist as the audience’s introduction to the rest of the cast. However the premise of their presence is shallow. Perhaps it is more relatable to US audiences (the film’s primary target), but UK viewers may find the jokes don’t travel as well.

It probably would have also been a benefit to give a little more focus to certain characters and put more time into making them memorable rather than spreading the characterisation too thin. Mary and her fellow churchgoers are at least memorable, but other members of the cast are interesting by virtue of what happens to them rather than what the audience knows of them. The panic of an imminent drug test failure is a great set-up for hijinks, as is the uncertainty of approaching someone about an unconfirmed porn career. Yet what these moments mean to the characters themselves are what makes them memorable. An overabundance of storylines may be at fault here – with all being fun but few carrying any substance.

Hot Box is undeniably entertaining, and anyone looking for a party film will find enough here to satisfy their craving for youthful craze. But you get the sense that a little more focus would have led to more memorable characters and a tighter grasp of story. Like any great party though, it’s a great time even if the details are a little fuzzy.