The devil in the disco: the outrageous new film Party Monster pairs Macaulay Culkin and Seth Green as club-kid murderer Michael Alig and his very gay Boswell, James St. James.

"I'm a simple girl with a simple look," says James St. James. "At an early screening I remember protesting out loud, 'I would never wear Moschino!'"

He's talking about Party Monster. Due to hit theaters this fall, it's adapted from St. James's 1999 book Disco Bloodbath, about the costume--crazy early-'90s New York club-kid scene and its disintegration following the vicious murder of drug dealer Angel Melendez by St. James's best friend, scene king Michael Alig.

It's a story St. James, along with directors Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey, has been telling for about five years in one form or another. Under their Los Angeles-based production banner, World of Wonder, Bailey and Barbato have directed two Alig-based projects--a 1998 documentary, also titled Party Monster, and now the feature, starring Macaulay Culkin as Alig.

From the start there has been resistance. "People thought the characters were too self-indulgent or plain despicable," says Barbato. "But before there was a murder, before there was the darkness, what the club kids did was brilliant, turning themselves into post--Warhol stars and inviting everyone to a democratic party where anyone could shine. A celebristocracy. They were predicting the future, from reality television to the 'two seconds of fame' phenomenon."

Seth Green, who nearly hijacks the picture with his delicious turn in the role of St. James, elaborated in an Advocate interview at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. "It's important to note what happened at that time in New York," Green says, "because it was such a safe haven for artists and creative people and alienated loners--people who could be categorized as losers in any other setting--but there they were superstars. And I enjoyed the pork-chop outfit."

Pork-chop costumes? St. James explains, "We created a look that was part drag, part clown, part infantilism. It was not sexual. We were just being creative."

Contemporary taste makers are watching Party Monster partly because it marks the return of Macaulay Culkin to acting after a self-imposed adolescent retirement. Formerly the world's most famous child star, Culkin "came to the public as this little Dickensian orphan," says St. James. "In this movie, when you see him lying in a jock strap smoking crack, it's a bit disconcerting."

With Alig now in solitary confinement writing his own account, the story may still be retold--but not by World of Wonder. "We're club-kidded out," says Barbato, laughing.

White writes about film for E! Online.