Hot Picks
|
|
|
Malatesta's Carnival of Blood
USA 1973
produced by Richard Grosser, Walker Stuart
directed by Christopher Speeth
starring Janine Carazo, Jerome Dempsey, Daniel Dietrich, Lenny Baker, Hervé Villechaize, William Preston, Paul Hostetler, Betsy Henn, Chris Thomas, Paul Townsend, Tom Markus, Sebastian Stuart, James Lambert, Rebecca Stuart, Jim McCrane, Gloria Salmansohn, Karen Salmansohn, Tom Dorff
written by Werner Liepolt
review by Mike Haberfelner
|
|
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
|
|
Vena (Janine Carazo) and her parents (Paul Hostetler, Betsy Henn) have
just taken up work at a run-down carnival - with the secret intention to
look for their lost brother/son mind you -, and it doesn't long before
things get weird, especially after Vena's friend Kit (Chris Thomas)
admitted a family into the "Tunnle of Love", and they didn't
come out again. And the carnival's business manager Blood (Jerome Dempsey)
had been spotted nearby. But when they try to investigate, Kit and Vena
are soon found out, and trying to flee the carnival, they have to realize
they are kept inside by an electric fence. The next day, Kit is found
dead, Vena is captured by carnival owner Malatesta's (Daniel Dietrich)
people, cannibals who live in the abandoned mines under the carnival, and
her parents ara attacked by Malatesta's cannibals as well, and somehow
make it to the mines escaping them ... which turns out to be not the
safest place. Vena manages to escape but is then captured by Blood, who
turns out to be a vampire out for her blood, but then her boyfriend Johnny
(Paul Townsend) arrives to save the day - but everything's so wrong in
Malatesta's dark carnival that not even Johnny is allowed to stay
triumphant for very long ... Well, there are no two ways about
it, one has to admit that Malatesta's Carnival of Blood was made on
a very moderate budget, not all the actors are totally up to their task,
and the film isn't exactly first rate direction-wise ... but boy, is this
one a mind trip. It's a movie that successfully uses its seedy carnival
backdrops to full effect, the low budget set designs have an eerily
surreal quality to it, the movie does at times (intentionally or
unintentionally, I'm not even sure) abandon general reason for a
nightmarish approach to storytelling, and its odd pacing helps the movie
rather than hurting it. Now I honestly cannot say this is anything close
to a classic ... but it's a film that will definitely stay with you for a
while.
|
|
|
review © by Mike Haberfelner
|
Feeling lucky? Want to search any of my partnershops yourself for more, better results? (commissions earned) |
The links below will take you just there!!!
|
|
|
Thanks for watching !!!
|
|
|
Robots and rats,
demons and potholes, cuddly toys and shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill Your Bones to is all of that.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to -
a collection of short stories and mini-plays ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle,
all thought up by the twisted mind of screenwriter and film reviewer Michael Haberfelner.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to
the new anthology by Michael Haberfelner
Out now from Amazon!!! |
|