Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

BA_Harrison Carnival of Blood's cheap and cheerful gore scenes owe a lot to the splatter films of H.G. Lewis, but the stuff that happens in between the movie's messy murders makes Lewis's efforts look positively professional by comparison. Set on Coney Island, the bulk of writer/director Leonard Kirtman's extremely low budget horror follows a variety of obnoxious characters as they visit the attractions of Coney's famous amusement park, upsetting a killer with mommy issues, who metes out extreme punishment for bad behaviour. Investigating the grisly slayings is assistant district attorney Dan (Martin Barolsky) who drags his fiancée Laura (Judith Resnick) to the carnival to check out the murder site.Sluggish pacing and terrible acting from all involved make the film a real challenge to sit through, but Carnival of Blood's biggest problem is its repetitiveness, Kirtman using the same setup over and over again: introduce a thoroughly loathsome character, have them upset the killer, see them visit a fortune teller (who quickly ushers them out of her stand when she foresees their fate in her Tarot cards) and then bump them off in grisly fashion. All of this is sporadically interspersed by scenes of Dan and Laura as they get engaged, canoodle, argue and make up, and of sideshow barker Tom (Earle Edgerton) chatting to his hunchbacked assistant Gimpy (Burt Young of Rocky fame, in his feature debut).The whole film is a boring mess, but especially crap low-lights include the bizarre opening credits that feature a lousy theme song and a body-less head mouthing wordlessly, some of the worst drunken acting ever committed to film (courtesy of Glen Kimberley, in his one and only movie role), and the most insufferable woman imaginable (bespectacled and bewigged Gloria Spivak, who will have you cheering her character's death). Those who check the film out purely for the gore will be treated to a decapitation with blood spurting from the neck stump, a stabbing/disembowelment, and a woman having her tongue and eyes yanked out.

preppy-3 Someone is killing people at a Coney Island amusement park. Don (a d.a in training) and his whiny girlfriend Laura go to investigate.You know--I love bad horror movies. But I love the ones that are so bad they're funny. This isn't funny. It's full on unpleasant characters that you want dead within minutes. The movie is also 95% dialogue--all of it bad and uninteresting. People just walk around or stand around and talk endlessly about nothing. The dialogue is terrible and the acting is even worse. The movie has an R rating for three gory murders. They ARE bloody but have the worst gore effects I've ever seen outside of a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie. It was so bad I thought they were kidding. I fast forwarded my way through most of the movie. Did I mention it has FOLK music during the movie which is REALLY out of place. This is only of interest as being Burt Youngs' (billed here as Jack Harris--wise move) first film. Really dull and just very VERY bad. This can safely be avoided.

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!!!