4.2 of 22

The Dinner Party 2020 Full Movie fmovies

HD 4.2 116 min

The Dinner Party: A Captivating Movie Experience

Plot Summary of The Dinner Party Full Movie fmovies

The film opens with text explaining who the Donner Party was and how they ended up in the terrible situation of passing the cutoff. It then proceeds to a dramatization largely following the exploits of main character William Foster (Crispin Glover) during the attempt to cross the Sierra Nevada mountains and his group that would be later known as “The Forlorn Hope” whilst seeking rescue for the broader Donner Party (the film chooses to focus on a select few characters, while in the real-life background the Donner-Reed Party considered of a fairly large group of multiple families). The film takes several artistic liberties with the true story basis, and combines multiple real-life historic figures from the Donner-Reed Party into these characters.

Struggles and Moral Dilemmas

William Foster is bothered by the deterioration he sees in the makeshift camps built by the Donner Party, the increasing worry of the women and children in the camps, and a recent death which concludes in a burial while onlookers grieve, distraught. He prays frequently, hoping that devotion to God will provide some hope for his fellow pioneers, and as things continue to get worse and the snowfall builds, he opts to go on ahead and seek aid in rescue. Foster finds himself consistently at odds with fellow pioneer William Eddy (Clayne Crawford), and the group begins to bicker as rations grow more scarce. Violence ensues, including a fight during which a person is nearly stabbed to death, and when starvation sets in, the group decides to draw straws to decide which man will be sacrificed (Jay Fosdick (Cary Wayne Moore) refuses to participate in the “game”). Foster ends up executing fellow pioneer Milt McCutchen (Jack Kyle) with a gunshot wound to the back of the head after the man ends up drawing the shortest straw.

Eddy’s Descent into Madness

Fosdick is criticized for failing to add any ration to the shared pot of food that the group is collecting, and he in turn chastizes Foster for his callousness in executing McCutchen, to which Foster remarks, “everyone is to contribute to the pot equally”. Eddy later has disturbing delusions in his sleep of his wife, Eleanor (Jamie Anne Allman) standing in the snow in a white dress, totally emaciated, holding a deceased infant’s corpse as it drips with blood. Upon awakening, he discovers that the group’s Native American guide, Luis (John A. Lorenz), whom Eddy has been secretly protecting, has fled into the forest, with Foster looking for him after suspecting him of misleading the group.

Twists and Turns

Eddy holds a crazed Foster at gunpoint, but is unable to shoot the man. Foster finds Luis and bludgeons him to death before eviscerating his corpse off-screen; meanwhile Eddy collapses in the snow from illness due to starvation, and his wife sneaks him meat. Fosdick severely lacerates his leg in a sudden fall, and fearing that Foster will murder the man in his weakened state, his wife, Ann Fosdick (Catherine Black) savagely asserts that he is fine. Foster becomes extremely bloodthirsty, and it is implied that he feeds his group the butchered corpse of Luis, as they all gnaw in horror upon pieces of bizarre-looking meat.

Surprising Revelations

Ann and Jay Fosdick find that whenever Ann isn’t present, Foster is sneaking up behind Jay with strange offers to put him out of his misery due to his injured leg. Ann chases Foster off, and as Foster saunters away, he is seen holding a knife in his hand. It is unclear whether these disturbing sights are real, or merely paranoid delusions among the group. As the group continues to starve and freeze to death, Foster is left weak and shivering under blankets, and to his surprise, Eddy acts as an ally and offers to go seek rescue with the aid of fellow pioneer Mary Graves (Alison Haislip).

Heart-Pounding Conclusion

Instead of finding help, however, Eddy sneaks back the next morning with Mary and the pair shoot Jay Fosdick to death, leaving Ann Fosdick in hysterics. Eddy and Mary rip open Jay’s abdomen, remove his intestines and liver, and begin eating these internal organs while a horrified Ann flees. She comes upon a freezing Foster, who comforts her and is revealed to have been the more trustworthy and sane of the group after all, in comparison with Eddy, who decides to continue alone on the journey to California, leaving Mary behind to die. As Foster, his wife and the remaining survivors later gather together before a solemn campfire, Amanda McCutchen (Michele Santopietro), (the wife of the earlier-executed Milt McCutchen), proceeds to secretly arm Ann Fosdick with a shotgun. Catching Foster off guard and unaware, Ann proceeds to execute him with a gunshot wound to the face. The film ends with William Eddy collapsing in the snow, presumably near his destination as two men are shown discovering his fallen body, the sound of his heart still beating as he is finally rescued.