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.

Red-Barracuda A maniac is on the loose in Coney Island ripping women apart. A couple of amateur sleuths discover that prior to their murders, all victims seem to have visited a dart game booth and a fortune teller who foresaw their eventual fate.As I watched this Z-grade horror effort, I suspected quite strongly that this must be an Andy Milligan movie on the basis that he was a New York based exploitation director who made bargain basement splatter films around the same time as this one that featured ropey cinematography, cheap gore effects and misanthropic characters. As it turned out, this wasn't the work of Milligan at all but instead the creation of director Leon Kirtman who was seemingly a director of porn flicks, which might explain quite a lot of the technical short-comings to be found here. He was also responsible for the later horror flick Curse of the Headless Horseman (1972), which was a pretty mind-numbing effort in rubbish cheapo film-making. Apparently, that one played alongside Carnival of Blood as part of a double-bill at the time. I can only imagine how unimpressed most of the unfortunate patrons who went to see that endurance test must have been.This one falls into the same bracket as the splatter films typified by H. G. Lewis. But it seems to have been made on even less of a budget and, unlike in Lewis's flicks, the gore is pretty half-heartedly executed, although there is a decapitation that is relatively well done. More damagingly, it suffers from poor pacing, with lots of scenes of more or less nothing going on. It reminded me a little of the earlier film She Freak (1967) which contained endless scenes of people hanging out at a carnival, doing carnival type things, i.e. reasonably good fun if it's you doing it but not so entertaining if it's you watching people do it. Despite this definite drawback, the location does work in the film's favour in some ways, as it has a definite of-its-time unusualness, while the production on the whole does benefit a bit from the overall scuzzy atmosphere that is generated. Amusingly, despite the rock-bottom production values, we have future respected character actor Burt Young of Chinatown (1974) and Rocky (1976) fame appear as a deformed carnie called Gimpy. It's not a role he will necessarily be fondly remembered for and he did hide under the pseudonym of John Harris, but the joys of the internet age means there is no hiding place anymore.In all honesty, this is a pretty ropey and low quality effort. Its grimy grade-Z nature almost saves it but its overall tediousness negates those qualities somewhat. You know you're usually in bother if you are watching a feature film helmed by someone who normally directs porn flicks, and Carnival of Blood is no different.

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

EyeAskance Someone is stalking the patrons of a seedy, ramshackle carnival amusement park, murdering and mutilating them in a variety of gruesome ways. The multitude of suspects weighs heavy with iniquitous reprobates, but nobody is above suspicion.CARNIVAL OF BLOOD is the "beau ideal" of early 70s grassroots film-making...there isn't the slightest hint of virtuoso evident in so much as a single frame of this picture, but it certainly does shine as a sort of attestation to resourceful creative vitality. This turkey here is about as Spartan a production as ever there was, but the clever use of a carnival for the story's apex creates an illusion of the movie being something substantially "bigger" than it actually is...a breadline, bush-league, bottom of the barrel crock-o-schlock.While it certainly owes stylistically to the cinematrocious exploits of trash-film pundits like H. G. Lewis and Andy Milligan, CARNIVAL actually marches drunkenly to the freaky beat of a spaced-out drummer all it's own. As bad as it is, it's hard not to like...or at least be amused by...this gore-soaked, beggared lump of collective incompetence.5.5/10...I think just about anyone with a good sense of humor could find this enjoyable