Carnival of Blood (1970)

I stumbled over this disjointed mess of a movie recently. Since it “stars” Burt Young from the Rocky movies under a different name I thought I’d check it out. Who wouldn’t be fascinated by a movie that even Burt Young doesn’t want anyone to know that he did?

The story is about a killer picking his victims out from the crowds at Coney Island. They are always ladies and, in most cases, very annoying ones. That is why the movie opens with a couple arguing while they visit at night. The woman’s name is Claire, but before we see anything happen the action then moves to a couple sitting in front of their apartment building. This is Dan, who is a new assistant District Attorney and his lady Laura. It is also daytime so did nothing happen to the earlier couple? After proposing and some sexy times… not very actually… we go back to Claire and her boyfriend again at night. What the hell movie?

Stuff happens, Claire is unbearable, and then she gets her head cut off in the funhouse. Later we see Dan and Laura arguing because he wants to get picked for the big murder case and decides to take her to Coney Island to investigate. More annoying ladies play a dart game run by Dan and Laura’s upstairs neighbor Tom. There is also a palm reader that can apparently see when the ladies are going to be murdered and tries to get them to go home. And Burt Young plays Gimpy the disfigured hunchbacked red herring. Yeah, it was Tom all along.

Carnival of Blood was a miserable experience. The narrative is choppy as it never stays with the main characters long enough to build any momentum or hold my attention. It keeps pulling away to show us the next random annoying lady that is to be killed. And holy crap are these characters annoying. Nasally voices screeching in that God Awful New York accent had me rooting for the killer from the very start. I’m sure that we are supposed to be rooting for or at least concerned for Laura, but she is as annoying. Then again, her fiancé Dan is a bit of a dick as well. God help us but Gimpy is probably the only sympathetic character in the movie!

The movie was shot by a prolific porn director named Leonard Kirtman which explains a lot. Most of the dialogue seems improvised, the movie is mostly shot with a handheld camera, the lighting isn’t great, and as stated above characters float in and out. All of this is standard fare for the, at the time, adult movie business. It doesn’t surprise me that when he made a straight film like this that it had many of the hallmarks of the flicks he was already making. Those movies worked because no one cared about character and dialogue but here that is all we have. It just doesn’t work and makes for a long and boring viewing experience.

There are only four kills, but they are ambitious for a no budget early seventies movie. There is the beheading and a couple stabs to the gut, one with some intestine pulling. Though my favorite was an eye gouging that while it looks silly was still a neat gag. We also get a weird twist at the end where our killer was supposedly disfigured in a fire when he was a kid so when he dies there is a terrible effect with him wearing fake skin.

This isn’t worth spending time or money on. Even the neat scenes shot at Coney Island (obvious gorilla filmmaking) capturing that special moment in time aren’t worth the ninety minutes you have to grind out on this turkey.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

The Dismembered (1962)

I’m a sucker for regional filmmakers and their product. When I heard that The Dismembered was released for a short theatrical run and then disappeared for fifty-five years until being released on DVD I was intrigued. It was either going to be a lost gem or a dumpster fire. So, what was it? Time to take a look.

Our main characters are some safe crackers robbing a wealthy house while the maid is tied up and gagged. They are posing as ambulance drivers, which is how they make their escape with a police escort no less! Eventually after ditching their ride they make it to an isolated house to lay low until the heat is off. Unfortunately for them the house is haunted by some elderly, quirky, and homicidal ghosts. There is also another ghost who is attached to a locket they stole, which further complicates things. After a committee meeting the ghosts decide to kill them all. But before they can finish them all off the spirits from the nearby cemetery invade the house in the form of arms, hands, and feet. This one gets weird before wrapping up.

There was something about The Dismembered when I was watching it that bugged me. It was played as a comedy with some weirdly dark twists. People are silly and then murderous, all while a jazzy soundtrack plays in the background. Then it hit me all of a sudden. This is a low rent take on the Corman movies A Bucket of Blood and Little Shop of Horrors. Not so much in that the story is similar but more that the spirit and I suppose “feel” matches up. Sadly, while those movies are a couple of favorites this one misses the mark.

Comedy folks... comedy!

The pacing is off with bursts of maniacal energy followed by slow talky parts. This makes for what feels like a very long movie that in reality barely makes it to an hour runtime. The living characters aren’t terribly interesting and sort of blend together. The ghosts, who I think were supposed to be the focus, have no background or history. They just sort of are to be wacky and incompetent. They never explain why the neighbors aka. the rubber body parts attack the house. This if further complicated by the girl ghost who seems to be there to be pretty and then disappear when not needed.

Honestly, I don’t think that they had much of a script and were winging it. What sealed the deal for me is when we got an extended slapstick gag with the ghosts running around doing “battle” with the invaders. The ending also left a lot to be desired as after sticking thru this we don’t really find out what happens to the survivor. At least not on screen, it is only hinted at.

The ghosts... spooky aren't they?

The sound is terrible with loud and intrusive music that is that generic sounding late fifties beatnik jazz. This is done in some scenes to cover the fact that they didn’t record audio. Here is a pro tip when watching old movies. If the cast always has their back to you when delivering lines that was because they dubbed it all in later. With the lack of ambient noise and the obnoxious music that was clearly the case here. I had hoped that it would get better, but even when they were recording audio the music is annoying and the audio isn’t great. The folks making this movie clearly didn’t have the gear or skills to do it correctly.

I could go on about the terrible acting, poor dialogue (again it feels improvised as if they didn’t have a fleshed-out script), and awful lighting. But haven’t I made my point yet? There is a reason that The Dismembered spent more than fifty years on a shelf. Maybe it should have stayed there. I can’t recommend this one.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Blood Pageant (2021)

A voiceover about something that I don’t remember and didn’t care about drones on as the camera zooms in on planet Earth and drops right down until it focuses in on the face of a girl who screams as the camera goes black. Then we see the message appear on screen… “Six Days Earlier”. The girl we saw is named Amy and she is going to see a medium for a card reading. She is worried that she “can’t go thru with it” which we find out later the “it” is going on a reality show. She is given a pendant and told to make a spirit board. Of course, that isn’t a good thing as somehow things get out of hand and a curse in the form of a mysterious figure in a black dress starts to kill people.

We are also introduced to another girl on the show, called American Dreams. She is a devout Christian and struggles with the content of the show. But Shelley can’t just quit when she recognizes the danger that everyone else is in. So she enlists the help of god by going to a church. There she meets a priest, played by Stephen Baldwin in a glorified cameo, who gives her some holy water and an old bible. This leads to a big battle where basically everyone, but our heroines die. But at least the evil is stopped…

This is a terrible movie. The cast is passable but nothing special. Things are dominated by the appearance of the previously mentioned Baldwin as well as Snoop Dogg and Ted Lange. These are basically small cameos with Snoop mostly showing up on a cell phone. Yes, he literally “phones” it in! The story doesn’t help as it gives nothing interesting for the actors to sink their teeth into. This is a very basic story that has a “been there done that” feel. It was mind-numbingly boring. It spends far too much time on backstory for characters that don’t move the story along and honestly that as a viewer I couldn’t care less about. This movie clocks in at almost two hours and desperately needs a bit of editing. Though I’m not sure if that would help at all.

Father Baldwin...

Blood Pageant also has this weird swerve at the end where it sort of becomes an odd faith based horror flick where the power of Christianity saves the day. But that doesn’t match with the rest of the content, so I was a bit confused. I mean there is a murder at a threesome, though it is totally lame. Both the murders and the threesome. Speaking of killings there are a total of eight. The stuff on screen is lame and what could have been cool is offscreen or seen after the fact. I was terribly disappointed with what the movie had to offer. I also wondered if this was supposed to be a comedy, but since it isn’t funny, I’m guessing it either wasn’t or failed miserably.

If it isn’t obvious yet I’m not recommending Blood Pageant. It is a misfire that no one needs to waste their time watching. I’ve seen a lot of crap while digging thru the stacks of flicks to watch for the site and this has to be one of the worst I’ve seen. Make me feel better for having watched this and heed my advice.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Revealer (2022)

This movie caught my attention because I’ve heard great things about it, as well as horrible things. With that in mind and the fact that it was on Shudder I had to take a look at this one. What did I think? Keep reading to find out.

The fun kicks off with a television preacher locked in what appears to be a room or hallway. There is a television playing one of his sermons while a voice yells at him. He is screaming back that he isn’t a sinner. Note to self if you have to argue that vehemently that you aren’t a sinner you probably are. The credits roll and then we meet our main characters.

Angie works as a stripper at Revealer, a peep show. We see her walking into work and thru a batch of protestors where we meet our other main character, Sally. She is your typical Jesus freak who is trying to “save” everyone from themselves. Angie goes inside and sets her booth up when a weird storm rolls in. The guy running the shop, Ray, gets yanked out the door when he kicks out some of the protesters who have come in to take cover. When next we see him, he is the worse for wear as his tongue has been ripped out. Angie can’t get out of the booth because the door is stuck. Never fear though as the only other survivor is Sally who reluctantly helps. The rest of the movie is them bickering until they find a common ground, all while trying to escape what is happening.

I liked Revealer a lot. This is a very small movie with few locations and just a few characters. Most of the action revolves around Angie and Sally and the actresses portraying them do a wonderful job. They come across as real people and while you can see these opposites eventually becoming friends because of the performances it feels real. The only other actor that has any lines of note is Ray and he is there to show that outside is very bad.

The plot is solid and paced well. Clocking in at an hour and twenty-five or so minutes not a single scene is wasted or felt like padding. The characters are always moving forward, whether it is sorting out how to get Angie out of the booth or realizing they need to get to the tunnels beneath the shop to make their escape safe from the disaster happening outside. Now I must warn you that the next bit is going to give some spoilers so if you don’t like that sort of thing, I’ll let you know that I’m going to highly recommend Revealer. Okay you have been warned.

In the early stages of the story Sally is very annoying about this being the end times and that the rapture has happened. But as things progress, I was surprised that is exactly what is happening. Though the rules about who is in and who isn’t aren’t what Sally thought they would be. Angie points out that she is right there with her. This leads to a plot twist that I didn’t see coming and was interesting. All while this is happening, they are being chased thru the tunnels by the demon of lust, which I suppose makes sense given where Angie worked. This makes for an exciting and interesting watch.

I love the creature design

There isn’t much gore with Ray being the only person who gets messed up and the worst of it is offscreen. What I did like was the design of the demon as well as the look of both the club but the tunnels as well. Oh and we find out once they are down there that this is where the preacher was in the precredit bit. How is that possible? Okay there is a super spoiler coming… the camera pulls back at the very end after we thought they had reached safety only to see in a post credit scene (stick around!) that they are already in hell. Wow… I did not see that coming. Way to go movie.

I don’t get why there is so much hate for Revealer, but I don’t agree with it. Maybe people were turned off by the small cast or maybe they didn’t see the post credit bit. Either way I’m going to recommend that everyone check it out. This is a great movie and another big score for Shudder.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Amityville: Mt. Misery Rd. (2018)

I must warn you that this isn’t going to be a pleasant review to read. This “movie” checked a lot of boxes on my shit list and I’m not going to shy away from going into detail about them. If you don’t want to hear me rant, then let me save you some time and let you know that this is a steaming pile of diarrhetic excrement that I don’t recommend. With that out of the way let us proceed with the rest of the review.

Our main characters are Charlie and Buzi, played by Chuck and Karolina Morrongiello, who I believe are married. I could check to verify that but there is no way I’m wasting another millisecond of my life on this movie. They are going to check out the most haunted road in America which is of course Mt. Misery Rd. We get to watch them do stuff before doing more stuff and then getting on an airplane to fly from Florida to New Jersey only to do more stuff. Eventually after most of the movie has passed, they do check out the titular road which means leaving it and wandering into the forest because it turns out the road means shit all to the story. Stuff happens and then mercifully it ends.

I believe that the most important observation that I can make about Amityville: Mt. Misery Rd. is that it isn’t a movie. I’m not saying it is a bad movie, I’m telling you it simply isn’t a movie at all. Allow me to elaborate. Things kick off with some old pictures and some word salad that I believe is supposed to establish that the stretch of land the road crosses is cursed. Then we watch Charlie drive his car on the highway. Not the titular road because he is still in Florida at this point. He is just driving and shifting gears and whatnot. Eventually he pulls up to a big house where I suppose the action is going to start. But instead, he goes to his mailbox and gets the mail, then proceeds to walk to his front door go in and stroll over to the kitchen where he sorts the days correspondence. Fellas watching someone do their errands isn’t a movie. We don’t need to see all of this to establish what is happening, but when you don’t have a story then I guess you have nothing else to put in.

Dude likes his lady...

Charlie finds an envelope filled with pictures of orbs, which is actually like five or six which he keeps flipping thru. First who sends actual pictures via snail mail anymore? Email that shit! He gets excited and calls out to his wife, Buzi. Now I don’t want to be unkind, but she is a terrible actress. Not sure if it is her thick accent or just an inability to deliver a line but she is nails on a chalkboard bad. Though she is very pretty and before you think I’m being creepy keep reading to see what happens later. While he talks on the phone Buzi Googles Mt.Misery Rd. We spend a few minutes watching her Google and read various websites while Charlie is chatting on the phone before eventually joining her.

Then Buzi announces that she is hungry, and we then see her doing a sexy dance for Charlie at a bar while a song plays about her being hot and stuff. Oh, she must have changed too because she is now in some booty shorts that the camera keeps focusing on. Again, she is a pretty lady and I guess that Chuck is quite proud of her in real life (again I think they are married) but damn it I signed up for a ghost story. They get some food and find a guy who is from the area and keeps telling them not to go while struggling to not look at the camera while stumbling over his lines.

Getting a little creepy Bro...

So far we have watched some driving, checking the mailbox, Googling some shit, and of course sexy dancing/getting food. This isn’t a movie this is what my parents used to call “puttering around town”. Don’t worry though we get a montage of them at the airport horsing around, another visit to a restaurant in New Jersey where they meet an “expert”, and another getting ready for bed montage where we get an even more revealing and lingering set of shots on Buzi’s buttocks. This is starting to get creepy dude…

Eventually they make it to the woods and the last ten minutes, you heard me right it takes that long to get to the actual spooky stuff which isn’t spooky at all, where Buzi walks around calling out for the now missing Charlie.

In conclusion nothing happens. There is no story, the dialogue is clearly improvised by folks that have no aptitude for doing such things, and our lead actress has the most annoying voice I’ve heard since Woodchipper Massacre. The proceedings are shot on what I believe must have been phones with selfie sticks used to get some distance from the “actors”. Just to be clear this isn’t a found footage movie they just didn’t have a third person in most spots to hold the camera. I have no idea how this got made and distributed, but it is an egregious example of the sort of shit that gets out there and wastes our time. It kills me that actual filmmakers who have some talent and are trying to do something interesting don’t get a shot but somehow this nonsense does. While I have more to say I’ve already spent far too much time on Amityville: Mt. Misery Rd. and will finish by saying that this is hands down the worst of the bunch. I know there are another twenty plus to get thru, but God help me if there is a worst one to come.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Amityville : The Awakening (2017)

I kept saying that I’d eventually find one of these sequels that I’d like. I knew the moment that I saw the Dimension logo as well as Blumhouse being involved that this may be that flick. Toss in some name actors and I have to say I was excited.

The movie starts off as most of these do with a recap of the killings that kicked off the legend of the house. Then we see a new family moving in. Mom, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, has brought her family to town to be closer to her son’s doctors. He is in a vegetative state due to an accident that happened when he was defending his twin sister’s honor. The sister is played by Bella Thorn. See actual recognizable names in this one!

They move into the house and of course weird stuff starts to happen. The brother slowly starts to wake up, but he isn’t alone in his head. His twin sister catches on quickly that something isn’t right about what is happening. Of course, no one believes her. Toss in some new school friends that fill her in on the house which leads to a very odd moment where they are talking about the original movie while in a sequel to that movie! That is the sort of clever writing that you get with Amityville Awakening which also includes the best twist I’ve seen in any of these movies.

I suppose that I should give a spoiler warning as I’m going to ruin some parts of the movie. Unlike all the others I’ve talked about this is the one time that you probably want to watch this flick before reading further. You have been warned. Like I’ve mentioned the story is interesting and has an unexpected twist. The fact that the brother slowly recovers and eventually gets around to shot-gunning his family down wasn’t too shocking. What I didn’t see coming is that the mom had lost her faith in God and moved the family into the house not because it was cheap but to see if the “other” guy would help her child. She purposely put them all in danger to see if evil could help! That I never saw coming and is so different from the characters as victims that we normally get.

In addition to a cool story, we also get a movie that is packed with some decent jump scares that are setup well with the building of tension as we get to see things moving around in the shadows and other such creepy stuff. The movie has a wonderful rhythm of suspense released by a scare followed by ramping up the suspense again. This is a very well-made flick that I have to say I rather enjoyed. The “transformation” scene of the brother finally getting out of bed and cracking himself limber again also had me cringing. It is done mostly with sound and an actor that can contort his body around, but it is effective.

In addition to Thorn and Leigh there is also an appearance from Kurtwood Smith as the doctor. He is a welcome addition and does a solid job in his supporting role. Overall, this is by far the best of the franchise since maybe the remake which I will get around to reviewing eventually. If you have to watch an Amityville movie, then this is the one to check out. Especially if we are talking about any of the many sequels that have been coming out.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Amityville Prison (aka. Against the Night) (2017)

The movie starts off with an interrogation of a woman by what I think must be a police officer or maybe a Fed. She is covered in blood, and he tells her that he is sorry about what happened to her friends. So that is probably a bad thing. He asks her to tell him again what happened and that is where the main plot of the movie kicks off.

Our lead is with a group of friends hanging out and bullshitting about stuff. They hear their friends upstairs having sex and filmmaker Hank decides to sneak up and film them going at it like bunnies. Well, I guess that is something that friends do now… Eventually they start to talk about his career and as a result Hank offers them money to go to the local haunted prison, Holmesburg, to shoot his next big reality show. They agree and off they go. Eventually they get trapped in the abandoned buildings and are picked off one at a time until it is just our final girl and the police who show up. Which is why she is sitting in a room being interrogated.

So that is the end, right? Well not really. In an interesting twist it seems that the kids stumbled onto a hidden meth lab and the gas mask wearing killer was one of the guys running the illegal operation. This is despite Hank going on about how the prison is laid out like a crop circle and spewing nonsense about aliens. Though we see that all the guys working the lab are dead and when shots ring out sure enough a damn alien walks thru the door! Roll credits.

I want to give them credit for an interesting plot. I loved the whole misdirection when I thought it was going to be a bunch of drug dealers and not anything supernatural. That was a neat twist and very creative. But then they ruin that with the stupid reveal of the alien at the very end. Why was that necessary? Spoilers… it wasn’t. That twist added onto a twist left a bad taste in my mouth. I was already on the fence with Amityville Prison due to the at times terrible pacing and found footage shaky camera style, so this just pushed me into the negative review territory.

I guess I should also mention something else. As you may or may not know there are a ton of Amityville movies being made. That is because the name is that of a town so pretty much anyone can make a movie with Amityville in the title. But this goes even further than that because it was shot as Against the Night and is set in Philadelphia. Not once in the movie does anyone reference Amityville nor does the plot make any connection to it. Again, it also switches from a drug dealer to an alien monster movie never venturing into a ghost storyline at all. So far this is the most egregious attempt at slapping the name on a movie to garner interest and get distribution.

Is this a terrible movie? Again, the plot twist ruined it for me, and I had other issues with Amityville Prison. In the end though I have to admit that I’ve watched much worse. While I still can’t recommend Amityville Prison if you must watch one of these low budget entries then this one is okay, I suppose. Still there are much better things to check out.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer