These are not, in themselves, all that interesting. Noé may be a better technician than a thinker. And like most parties that go on too long and spin out of control, this one gets boring after a while. But the director’s skill and energy keep it exciting — if not entirely pleasant — at least until the serious violence starts.

[Gaspar Noé makes his peace with not being hated.]

The dancers, finished with rehearsals and about to embark on a tour of America, gather for music and drinks in a cavernous room on a winter night. We know it will end badly — the first image we’ve seen is of a desperate, bleeding woman crawling through the snow in daylight — and that the group came together in a spirit of eager creativity. On an old color television (the story takes place in the mid-90s), we watch snippets of the audition interviews that brought them to this fateful evening. The set is flanked by VHS tapes that offer clues about what is to come. The titles include “Suspiria” (the Dario Argento original, not the more recent remake), “Querelle” and “Possession,” films maudits whose ranks “Climax” aspires to join.

It has its moments, most of them in the first half, when the emphasis is on movement rather than mayhem. There are two extended group dance sequences, one filmed almost entirely from above, that are enthralling for their discovery of the strangeness and beauty of human bodies.

At rest, the people, a mix of races, sizes and sexualities, are somewhat more ordinary. They gossip, squabble and banter. The men brag about the sex they’ve had or want to have. The women do that, too, though in less explicit terms. The audience manages to figure out who is who, and struggles to remember the names, as if we had crashed the party. Selva (Sofia Boutella) is the one with the dyed-blond bob who might be the main character. David (Romain Guillermic) is the guy putting the moves on her. Daddy (Kiddy Smile) is the D.J. Emmanuelle (Claude Gajan Maull) is the mother of the little kid. There are snacks and sangria, which turns out to be laced with LSD.