Pacionsbo
Absolutely Fantastic
MoPoshy
Absolutely brilliant
Hayden Kane
There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes
TheLittleSongbird
Carnival of Blood is not irredeemable by all means. The Coney Island setting is a good setting with a real sense of fun and atmosphere and Gloria Spivak while overacting to maximum degrees is hilarious. And there is a little entertainment value, though mostly unintentionally. The rest of Carnival of Blood is very schlocky however. The movie is very clumsily edited with lighting that does nothing to enhance the mood and very amateurish-looking effects. The music is repetitive, irritating and out of place more often than not and the killings are not that inventive and further marred by some of the worst gore effects in the history of movies. Carnival of Blood also comes across personally as a classic case of too much talk and not enough horror or suspense. There is a lot of dialogue, and pretty much all of it sounds clunky and improvised, the pauses and constant stumbling over lines being tell-tale signs. The story was a silly one to begin with but for a horror there is nothing here horrifying, tense or suspenseful, everything is far too predictable and pedestrian(often not much happening). The direction is very flat, while the acting is atrocious with only Spivak and the teddy bears(menacing and somewhat cute) showing signs of personality, it just looks unrehearsed and like nobody cares about what's happening to them. And the killer is acted in such a hammy way that they can't be taken seriously. On the whole, occasionally entertaining but in almost all ways there is very little to recommend Carnival of Blood. 2/10 Bethany Cox
Scarecrow-88
A crazed killer is mutilating the bodies of customers who visit the Coney Island Amusement Park. Most of these deaths coincide with "what's in the cards", interpreted with a frightened reaction from The Fortune Teller (Kaly Mills). Tom (Earle Edgerton) operates a "dart balloon" stand. It is simple: pop three balloons with three darts and you win a stuffed animal. Over and over the film browbeats us with some annoying customer, whether it be a loud blabbermouth wife whose hostility to her husband grates the nerves of everyone around them, a drunk sailor and his skanky mistress, or a cheapskate woman who nags and berates, as they visit Tom's stand, get their fortune read by The Fortune Teller, then eventually meet their demise. The film, besides the sub-plot of a potential DA, Dan (Martin Barolsky) and his fiancé, Laura (Judith Resnick) and their squabbles and getogethers, some congenial, some not so, drones on and on to such a repetitive degree, same old same old, with the problem being that we have to spend too much agonizing time with these misfits before they are dispatched. The film does find plenty of time for Tom to bicker with his slow-witted assistant, Gimpy (Burt Young, of "Rocky" fame) as they encounter the worst kind of customers visiting their booth. The film's supposed mystery of who the killer is couldn't be more easy to figure out. Burt Young is excruciatingly awful, bumbling over his lines—it was painful to not only watch, but listen. The filmmakers decided to put these ghastly sores on Gimpy's face to make him more grotesque looking—it does kind of fit in with the atmosphere of the surroundings and the type of "human grotesqueries" that show up without as much physical malady as having antagonistic personalities that portray the worst of what mankind has to offer. The characters that eventually die, thanks to the director, are forced on us for such long periods, I figure, so that we just yell at the screen, "Let these assholes die already!" Those fascinated with Coney Island circa 1970 and the denizens which frequented the amusement park (it looks like the director just took a small crew and shot within an operating amusement park, with real locals coming out to enjoy the festivities) or to see Burt Young muck it up in his film debut might like this movie more than the casual horror fan. I was glad it was over once the film ended.
reptilicus
Way back in the early days of home video you had to cough up $59 to own this movie. Now you can find it on DVD for a fraction of that amount; isn't technology wonderful?Okay seriously now. I first got this film because I hoped it might actually be MALATESTA'S CARNIVAL OF BLOOD. It wasn't (duh!) but I certainly got my money's worth. Set in a Coney Island carnival most of our attention is focused on Tom (Earle Edgerton) who runs a booth where you throw darts at balloons to win a prize and his fire scarred pal Gimpy (he's billed as John Harris but WE know he's really Burt Young). Tom seems like a nice enough guy but you have to wonder how he gets through the day when the people who come to his booth all seem to be obnoxious, ill-mannered, drunken loudmouths.There is also a mad killer stalking the midway. Whoever it is commits some very brutal, but not entirely convincing, murders. I mean, Andy Milligan had more believable gore in his films and you REALLY have to be at the bottom of the barrel to be less effective than Andy! A knifing on the beach is very bloody but the camera stays on the victim so long we get too close a look at what must be a rubber dummy and Karo-syrup blood. Another victim is killed by a dart . . . oh when will low budget directors learn that you need a mighty good pitching arm to throw a dart through a persons skull, and even so a wound like that would probably not be fatal? Oh well, just keep repeating "It's only a movie . . ."So what did I mean about disturbing in parts? Well near the end when we find out not only who the killer is (no, I am not going to tell you! Sit through this movie and suffer like I did if you want to know!) but why he is doing it (a violent mental shock when he was a child; no wonder psychologists love to analyse these movies!) there is a scene of the heroine (Judith Resnick) finding a teddy bear stuffed with human entrails! That is the scene I remember most over all the previous cheap gore moments, it is unexpectedly effective and emotionally jarring. Tis' a pity the rest of the movie could not keep up.Truly this is one for junk movie completest only. I'll bet once Burt Young hit it big in the ROCKY movies he crossed this title off his resume.PS: Did I ever find MALATESTA'S CARNIVAL OF BLOOD? I sure did! Check out my review of that one sometime.
emm
Some bad movies I've seen in my entire life have been considerably good, simply because they've aged well enough to build a more entertaining purpose. For that reason alone, B-movies, or drive-in movies, or "Idontknowwhatelseyoucancallit" were never made on a gigantic budget compared to today's refined standards. Pre-millennium movie buffs laugh over these rushed out products as fun, enjoying, weird, and unusual. The reason technology hadn't been the cream of the crop justifies how virtually all films were created in the past 2-6 decades of cinema. Not so with CARNIVAL OF BLOOD.....Far worse than an Ed Wood production, this experience in bad moviemaking really shows! It does have some strange gory-looking material, including a scene where a head decapitates in front of crazy carnival-goers waiting for a ride, but you know it's extremely fake! Actually, this isn't a horror show, it's a mess! Couples argue, folk music is playing, people romancing, a buddy chatting to a friend for five worthless minutes, a woman getting struck by a car that looks poorly filmed.... What more is there? Much more! You'd think the opening credits was never a flaw for movies. Guess again! While you hear the sound of a heartbeat, those black screens with red lettering also has a woman's face moving her mouth and not voicing out a single word!Yes, CARNIVAL OF BLOOD doesn't make any entire bit of sense, especially when it is a B-movie, and if you get a desperate chance to view it, be sure to invite some friends or members of your family to gather 'round for an evening of pure ill-minded entertainment. Be sure to serve up some stale popcorn and flat carbonated soda for the occasion. Once you witness the absolute noneness of this perverted work of cinema, you'll find out that there are tons more cheaply made movies far surpassing its dreadful quality! GOOD GRIEF!!!
