Malatesta's Carnival of Blood (1973)

So I was a bit mistaken when I noticed this was available on Shudder. I thought it was the Carnival of Blood from 1970 featuring a pre-Rocky Burt Young. This 1973 oddity that had been considered lost; I read it was presumed all copies were destroyed after really bad reception when it was released in Drive-Ins. The 1970s were chock full of the strange and surreal, perhaps due to just how mad the world had gotten. Or it just seemed that way, I guess. Personally, I wasn't born until four years later, as the Disco era was in full swing. So this film really seems to communicate to me in a way because the carnival itself sort of depicts the decline and decay of a once (I assume) thriving amusement park in Pennsylvania as it was about to be put out of its misery. Those involved in the film never made another one, but I'm glad I had the chance to see "Malatesta's Carnival of Blood" because it really is a relic worth discovering if you are a connoisseur of independent, made-on-the-cheap, dimestore budget horror. The camera work (especially closeups of the cast in conversations) is rough, pointed awkwardly towards characters or even when active (Vena -- the leggy daughter of the Norrises, who arrive in their RV, parked inside the park, hoping to find the brother/son gone missing -- spends a lot of time running or at the rifle stand with guns pointed at her), the plot is really spare except for the parents and daughter looking for their missing family member with a lot of devotion towards the ghouls milling about the park at night as Mr. Blood (cane in hand) seems to be a barker, spokesperson, and manager (Malatesta, in his cape, sort of serves as an observer, gallivanting about at a distance from the Norrises, surveying the "fresh food" for which his zombies would get a taste (or meal, depending on "availability")).

I really want that Frankenstein and Dracula poster (at timestamp: 45:47) on the wall in a wrecked, cob-webbed room where a hook-handed zombie tells Johnny of how the carnival has had a lot of "accidents" while also showing him a book on violent cults. Oh, and Herve scurrying to a door on a wall leading him down a spiral staircase into a theater room where Malatesta's ghouls, in spirited entertainment, watch silent films such as "Phantom of the Opera" and "Hunchback of Notre Dame" is one of my favorite highlights of the film. The director gets so much value from the dying real estate of the on-life-support amusement park, shooting so much footage, I appreciated all the efforts to get as much as possible before the inevitable doom of the works on the property. Like when Mr. Blood tries to lead Vena out of the park, with the camera capturing all the underpinnings and woodworks of the rides...you could really tell that the director and those involved in the production wanted to really invest in the setting they had.

There is explanation as to what Malatesta's ghouls are: cannibals in limestone caverns raised on human meat and blood, never afforded a "normal" life, totally under his control. Mr. Blood, with vampire fangs, wants Vena's "precious blood". There is a lot of critique on makeup in the 70s. The grey skin palette of the undead were often criticized, but I just always considered that "error" as working with what you had at the time. Makeup had to evolve as the resources improved. If anything, the makeup of the ghouls in this film (and the likes of "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things" and "Deathdream") has a particular eeriness all their own, and there is also this vagrant quality to them, their dress and hair, that adds to how creepy they are. I had read a review of the film that mentioned "Carnival of Blood" alongside "Manos: The Hands of Fate". I'm thinking that is because Malatesta resembles Manos a great deal. There is that cheapness both of these films have in terms of budget quality and general weirdness, but "Carnival of Blood" trumps it in terms of almost every scene having something interesting to throw at us...having an amusement park at your disposal offers a room of mirrors, a roller coaster, and even a tunnel of love.  

I think even the park during the day is effective as a visual representation of abandonment, disinterest, and plight. The fun of the past reveals itself just briefly while Malatesta and a few others take a ride on a Ferris wheel while poor Vena is trapped in a room underground the carnival with her dead parents' corpses!

There was an amusement park in Memphis, TN, called Libertyland that lasted from 1976 until about 2005. I recall as a kid going to Libertyland a few years, remembering the Zippin Pippin, Elvis' favorite ride. There was a sign at the front as you load on the Pippin talking about how Elvis rode on it one last time before his death in 1977. I sort of looked at the Pennsylvania amusement park/carnival similarly. What probably was quite a beaut in the 50s had thrived for maybe ten years and by 1973 was puttering its final breaths before finally being put out of its misery. I'm certainly appreciative, today, that the Willow Grove establishment (the filming date December 1970) wasn't put to rest before Christopher Speeth could shoot his movie there. Special thanks to Arrow and the American Horror Project for dedicating efforts to preserve and spotlight films that are about as forgotten as the Willow Groves and Libertylands. Shudder giving the platform for these films to also gain attention: I'm forever in their debt.

Oh, and while it was on my mind. The film really seems to be a very stark reminder of a decade perhaps in transition from prior decades before it. The 50s after WWII and a booming economy gives way to a tumultuous 60s as Vietnam and a country twisting in knots and coming apart nosedives into a depressing, cynical 70s where serial killers seemed to be popping up, cults of every kind began to metastasize, the economy and and other financial woes, poverty, and violence exasperated towards an 80s that seemed to carry a veneer of wealth and potential. The 70s just felt like a world gone to fucking hell. And movies like "Malatesta's Carnival of Blood" seemed to be a dead amusement park vision of an America torn asunder.