We weren’t far into the 1973 indie horror film Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood when my wife said she bet Rob Zombie was a fan of it.  Closer to the end, I was thinking the picture had devolved into such a mess that I’m certain he will remake it eventually.

One positive thing I can say about this picture is it has about a thousand times more carnival in it than Carnival of Souls.  I would describe the one we see here as more of a theme park, as it is a permanent installation.  If it has a theme, it is probably “despair”.  It is a very unamusing amusement park.

You’d think it would be important for any such place to have customers.  And that would apply to one where the primary concern is financial gain.  Instead, this place seems to exist only to draw in customers and even new employees, whom they then kill and devour.

The first people we see disappear is a family of three who go into the a tunnel of love so sad that I suspect all riders contract some sort of venereal disease, even if they go in alone.

Odd how the authorities don’t seem to notice customers frequently go into the park and are never seen again.  I can better understand the apathy towards the disappearing employees, given the temporary labor they use, which doubtlessly includes people who want to stay under the radar.

But there seems to be only three or four employees of the park who are there during the night and aren’t ashen-faced, silent ghouls, so you’d think those people would at least notice something is amiss.  And one of those cannibals is around during the daylight hours: Mr. Bean (Tom Markus), who has a hook for a hand, which is one way he is distinguishable from Rowan Atkinson’s same-named character.  Also, I don’t think Atkinson’s Mr. Bean ever killed and ate anybody, but can we know for sure?

The term ghouls is probably the best term to describe the mysterious night workers who have such unsavory tastes.  At first, I thought they were zombies, but there is some clarification later (for no real reason I could discern) that they are alive but malnourished.  As a vegetarian, I’m chalking this one up as a win for the non-meat-eaters. 

That exposition is courtesy of Mr. Blood (Jerome Dempsey), who manages the park.  One would think he would choose an alias, as his surname is, indeed, a hint he is a vampire. 

The actual owner of the place is the Malatesta of the title.  Played by Daniel Dietrich, he is some sort of supernatural being.  He claims to have a thousand faces, so I was curious why the one he chose looks vaguely like a taller, thinner Ringo Starr.  He has a more than passing resemblance to The Master from Manos: The Hands of Fate.

This movie is almost as bad as that one, but only almost.  There is an astonishing lack of attention to continuity.  If one is being charitable, the result could be described as dream-like.  On a bonus interview feature on this disc, the director claims his one regret is he didn’t have enough money to shoot more continuity, which made editing more difficult.  This is his one regret?

I doubt that would have improved the scene where people magically appear and disappear out of a trailer that is under assault from the ghouls.  I hope it had a bumper sticker on it reading, “If this trailer’s rocking, it is probably because of cannibalistic fiends trying to gain entry to the tender morsels within.” 

More enjoyable, but still adding nothing to the story, is the weird imagery.  Consider the VW Bug hung upside down, with the hood hanging open to make a “mouth” lined with some sort of nubby, red, bubble wrap and paper cups as “teeth”.  Why did anybody do this?  Who the hell knows, but at least it looks interesting.

And there are plenty of sets like this.  Even the attractions seem lame, such as a hall of mirrors that is just some highly polished pieces of metal and a lot of aluminum foil.  Funny how “Hall of Aluminum Foil” doesn’t have much of a ring to it.  It’s like the set design was all done by community college students.

Speaking of which, community theater is about the level of the performances.  Not all of them are flat-out terrible, but all are a bit off of the mark, either playing too broadly or delivering their lines like some of the kids in those earliest Peanuts specials.

There is actually one recognizable actor and that is Hervé Villechaize, whom the vast majority of people would know as Tattoo on Fantasy Island.  But that would be overlooking such work as a Bond film (The Man With the Golden Gun) or the deeply weird Forbidden Zone.

Carnival of Blood is a lousy film with some interesting ideas.  Alas, almost complete ineptitude undermines almost every moment.  And there are genuinely creepy scenes, such as a drunk guy riding the rollercoaster in compete darkness when there’s nobody else around, except this bit becomes ridiculous the moment he is suddenly decapitated.  More artistic moments, such as the cannibal horde’s continuous viewing of silent movies deserve a better movie.  It is moments like that which lend itself to that Rob Zombie remake I’m imagining.  It’s a coin toss as to whether the results would be better or worse than the original.

Dir: Christopher Speeph

Starring (yeah, “starring”) Janine Carazo, Jerome Dempsey, Daniel Dietrich
Watched as part of the Arrow Video blu-ray set American Horror Project Vol. 1