The Afterparty is the latest comedy murder mystery, part of a subgenre trend that includes HBO Max’s Search Party and the 2019 film Knives Out, which was such a huge hit that Netflix recently paid a shocking $450 million for the rights to make two sequels.

There’s also the successful Hulu series Only Murders in the Building, which just got renewed for a second season, and the new Netflix series Murderville, based on a BBC favorite called Murder in Successville. The American version for Netflix stars Will Arnett as a tough detective who’s saddled with a new partner every week. The improv-comedy catch to the whole scenario is that each new partner is a celebrity — Sharon Stone, Marshawn Lynch, Kumail Nanjiani, Annie Murphy, Ken Jeong, Conan O’Brien — who hasn’t read the script and has to ad-lib their participation in the case.

I know all this because I suffer from the common addiction to murder mysteries, especially the corny old-fashioned whodunnit type that Agatha Christie used to write. This genre has zero cool factor and no cachet whatsoever, so it’s a relief to have it combined with comedy. That way you can pretend to be less seriously invested in finding out whodunnit.