Classic Movie Review: 'House Party 3'

House Party 3 (1994)

Directed by Eric Meza

Written by David Toney, Takashi Bufford

Starring Christopher 'Kid' Reid, Christopher 'Play' Martin, Bernie Mac

Release Date January 12th, 1994

Published January 17th, 2024

A third film in the charming and funny House Party franchise should have been an open goal kick. It should have been a sure bet to be a sweet, funny, silly, celebration of fun and hip hop. And yet, somehow, they managed to muck it up. Whether stars Kid N' Play felt they needed to prove how 'hard' they are after being labeled as soft based on the first two movies or the rappers got bad advice from the creative team of Eric Meza, David Toney, and Takashi Bufford, who went on to not work in feature films again, House Party 3 turned a charming franchise into a curdled exercise in toxic masculinity and male insecurity.

House Party 3 centers on a bachelor party for the soon to married Kid (Christopher Reid). Having moved on from his college girlfriend, played in each of the first two films by Tisha Campbell, Kid is set to marry Veda (Angela Means). This is despite the protests of Kid's pal, Play (Christopher Martin), who can't stop talking about how Kid is giving up his freedom and will miss out on sleeping with an unending number of women he's been taking advantage of via their mostly failing music management company.

That's truly the one joke that repeats throughout House Party 3, getting married is a mistake because there are so many other women to sleep with. It's the same pathetic joke over and over again ad nauseum. I've never understood these jokes about what a burden being married is. Do married men understand that getting married is a choice? You can choose to not get married. I've done it for 47 years. I've managed to go all of my life without being married. It's really not that hard. And yet, there are numerous movies, television shows and viral videos about men complaining about what being married prevents them from doing.

But this lame joke isn't the only lame joke in House Party 3, it's merely the most prominent. The other jokes center on the memory loss that can come with old age as it appears Kid's grandmother is developing alzheimers and this is somehow a very funny joke to the filmmakers. She can't remember her grandson's fiancee, ho ho! She can't remember where the stairs are in her home, ha ha! She can't remember where she is when she's not home. Will the hilarity ever begin? It's not merely that the joke is insensitive, it's that this joke is never done in a way that's actually funny.

Dragging down what few parts of the movie aren't some unfunny variation on how marriage sucks, is a subplot surrounding Kid's young cousins. Three pre-teens from the early 90s child hip hop group Immature take up a subplot in which they are stealing Kid's bachelor party. They sneak in behind Kid N' Play and manage to move their food, music and their stripper to a party at Kid's house instead of the hotel that Play has set up for the bachelor party. Yes, the stripper for Kid's party shows up at the party being thrown by three pre-teen boys and this is supposed to be very funny.

Throw in jokes about overweight women where the women simply being overweight is the joke, a needless transphobic joke, and Kid N' Play's absolute worst rap performance, and you have a toxic soup of unpleasant, unfunny gags. Kid N' Play rapping about sex in the most vulgar fashion lands with a thud. They just aren't those guys. It's clear that they were chafing against the idea of being considered soft or being considered 'family friendly' and they wanted to use House Party 3 to show that they can be as ugly and brutal as any other rapper of the time.

I'm not a prude, I grew up listening to 2 Live Crew and NWA. What sets those guys apart from Kid N' Play is that when NWA rapped about sex, it felt like it came from a genuine experience. Kid N' Play on the other hand, regardless of whether they were having all kinds of wild sex, come off as posers. It doesn't come off as an authentic experience. It comes off as a pair of rappers who are desperate for other rappers to take them seriously. It comes off like a pose. Luther Campbell, like him or not, rapped like a man who might sleep with your mother just as a flex. When Kid N' Play rap about sex they sound like Steve Carell in The 40 Year Old Virgin pretending he knows what a woman's breast feels like.

House Party 3 is the subject of the latest episode of the I Hate Critics 1994 podcast, a spinoff of the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast. Each week, myself and my cohosts Gen Z'er M.J and Gen-X'er Amy, talk about the movie released 30 years ago that same weekend. It's way to examine how cultural tastes have changed in a mere 30 years. It's a really fun show that mostly centers on terrible movies that have not stood the test of time. You can hear the I Hate Critics 1994 podcast on the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast feed wherever you listen to podcasts.

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