The Carnival Is In Town

Because of its doll head poster and carnival setting, I’d always meant to watch Dark Ride.

And now I have. So now life is fully open to so many more possibilities...

Quick Plot: Five awful college students decide to drive to New Orleans for spring break, taking a detour to New Jersey (because GPS wasn’t quite all there in 2006) and spending the night in a carnival dark ride that once hosted a sadistic serial killer. Naturally, said sadistic serial killer is residing in a mental asylum run by equally sadistic and far stupider orderlies whose abuse offers him an easy exit back to his killing grounds. 

No, you haven’t seen this movie before.

Well, I mean, of course you sorta have.

Directed by Craig Singer, Dark Ride is, well, it’s a slasher set in a funhouse and not unlike The Funhouse or many another horror flick set in a funhouse. Our cast is led by Meadow Soprano as a rather unremarkable final girl trying to figure out her relationship with an on again/off again boyfriend. Ashley Tisdale’s sister is her blond friend/early death fodder/partner in slut-shaming the friendly blonder hitchhiker they pick up. Also on board is Patrick “The Sandlot” Renna as Bill, the token fifth wheel/film geek with some confusingly ridiculous secrets of his own.

It’s hard to muster much enthusiasm when discussing a movie like Dark Ride because the movie barely has enthusiasm about itself. As the token frat jerk, Alex Solowitz is the only cast member to offer anything interesting onscreen, so that’s a minor problem. The overall tone can’t seem decide if it should be serious or silly, and the story seems to not even want to tell itself. The logistics of our killer conveniently escaping from a mental institution the same time that--

Wait:

The only reason I go this deep into the plot is that Dark Ride just doesn’t have much else to talk about. Since I’d rather write about messy storytelling than a woman being slaughtered while giving a dude oral sex, allow me to spoil away.

Bill, the geeky friend who wouldn’t really be the rest of our cast’s friend in real life but is required on the trip since movies have a nerd quota, is revealed to be none other than the little brother of Dark Ride’s raging maniac. Which would make sense if said raging maniac brother’s escape was planned for the same night when Bill’s caravan ended up in the out-of-the-way dark ride. But so far as we see, both were done by chance. Considering the wrap-up isn’t even wrapped up with any kind of satisfying resolution, it’s hard not to think Dark Ride was written as it moved on the tracks. 

Which, actually, don’t really exist inside the dark ride of the title. Customers visiting this attraction are apparently supposed to walk through miles of unclear path with no discernible way out. I don’t know about you, but from 1985 on, I don’t know that I’ve ever gone through a haunted house without having the illusion killed by a glowing “emergency exit” sign. But again, maybe things were just, well, DIFFERENT...in 2006 New Jersey.

High Points

While the geography of the actual dark ride doesn’t quite add up, there’s certainly some interesting imagery and effective production design going on

Low Points

Aside from the rather ridiculous machinations of the plotting, Dark Ride suffers from serious tonal confusion in just how seriously it wants to take the death of its characters. Some of the gore is over the top and silly, while other deaths seem as if they’re meant to be taken with great gravitas

Lessons Learned

In the early 2000s, going to New Orleans was considered retro

Unless you're Danny Trejo, no orderly in a mental asylum is ever not a sadistic bully

Shit old towns are the best

Feeding raw steak to an insane and weirdly muscled vegetarian is like giving spinach laced with crystal meth to Popeye if Popeye were, well, you get it.

Rent/Bury/Buy

Eh. One could do worse with a breezy 21st century slasher than Dark Ride, but that’s about the highest compliment I can give. So, you know, that. 

Sometimes these reviews just THAT themselves. 

It's Coming, & It's Really Wicked

Jack Clayton's The Innocents might well be one of cinema's most overlooked and outstanding ghost stories put to screen. It's quiet and subtle, but also wonderfully creepy and deceptively disturbing. It would make perfect sense then for Clayton to return to the genre he so excelled in, especially if being paired with novelist Ray Bradbury.

It would make sense, right? Now let's toss in the name "Walt Disney" and see logic ride a train out of town.

Quick Plot: In the scenic Illinois hamlet of Greentown, young Will and Jim are about to settle into a typically quiet October when, as the title hints, something wicked does indeed come.

This particular breed of evil arrives in the form of an unseasonal carnival, run by a steely eyed and magnificently creepy Jonathon Pryce as the not at all ominously named Mr. Dark. At first, the boys and their fellow townspeople are happy to ride a ferris wheel before the nips of November set in, but when a few unhappy locals disappear (and none too coincidentally, the carnival's staff seems to double) Will, Jim, and Will's self-doubting father Charles (played by a supremely wonderful Jason Robards) are forced to confront the unseemly fact that Mr. Dark's circus is not operating on the good side of morality.

Produced by Disney Studios and based on a Bradbury novel (which he himself adapted here), Something Wicked This Way comes is one of those 'children's' films of the '80s that is anything but. Though it is primarily seen through the young eyes of Will, this is a dark story, one that walks a slippery tightrope between nostalgia, mortality, and all-out fear. While it wears the scars of studio interference, confused rewrites, and a messy ending, it's also the kind of oddity that I found truly special.

The basis rolls off Bradbury's page as he smoothly translates his language to the screen. The opening narration--an apparent post-process addition--introduces us to a sleepy town and its quirky residents with careful skill. I imagine that the novel went into rich detail about the plainness of a schoolteacher spinster, but the screenwriter in Bradbury is smart enough to know that saying "You would never believe it, but she was once the most beautiful woman in town" is more than sufficient to tell us what we need to know. Though the younger actors aren't necessarily the most skilled at delivering some of the dialogue, for the most part, Bradbury's script has a strong ear that gives good actors an audio feast. When the stage-trained Pryce launches into maniacally evil poetry to seduce his latest victim or the rock solid Robards waxes on about the time he failed his son, Something Wicked This Way Comes hits its true stride. Much like the criminally underrated The Exorcist III, this is a film written by a novelist who understands how his words play on the camera and makes the most out of them.

That is not to say that Something Wicked This Comes isn't something of a mess. Certain scare sequences feel a tad forced in terms of story, even if it does give us the kind of tarantula mob scene fit for nightmares. The ending, whatever it is, doesn't make a lick of sense that I can taste. Robards reads some local mythology about how an evil carnival comes to town in October every couple of decades only to leave with the next big storm, but that still never provides any logical explanation of a) why Greentown b) why now c) what Mr. Dark's endgame is or most importantly, d) what the heck a storm has to do with it. It's clear from some library journals that a storm always marks the carnival's disappearance, but that doesn't make the surprisingly gruesome finale mean anything in terms of stakes, if it was bound to happen anyway. Also of note, and this is a MAJOR SPOILER

Do we ever learn what became of the few unlucky citizens to buy into the devil's promises? I imagined that the Disney portion of this film would show itself in a sugary coda, but instead, we just get a happy father/son moment. No word on the barber-turned-bearded lady, the youthful but blind teacher, the fully limbed former amputee or the greedy cigar shop owner. I wouldn't have a problem knowing that they DIDN'T join in the happy ending, but it's frustrating not to know.

SPOILERS OVER

All this aside, I found Something Wicked This Way Comes exceedingly fun in a youthfully macabre manner. This is a twisted little movie that seems primed to poke its intended young audience right where they're vulnerable, be that the threat of giant spiders or the fear of losing your parents. It doesn't work as seamlessly as it could, but when it does, it does so with committed and cruel energy that makes it hard to look away.

Oh, and in case  you were wondering why this title appears during February's Attack of the Shorties, allow me to demonstrate with Exhibit A, a little person clown parade!

And more notably, Exhibit B, wherein Dark's business associate is transformed (via magical carousel, natch) into a pre-Problem Child problem child, right down to the ginger 'do and bowtie

High Notes
Jason Robards brings such brilliant weight to his character, a 50something year old librarian with heart problems and a constant sense of inadequacy stemming from his age in relation to fatherhood. Charles Holloway is a fascinating and wonderfully written man in the hands of Bradbury, and Robards adds such solid presence and skill that it almost hurts

Similarly, few actors could deliver threats like "we butter our bread with delicious pain" with the same seductive musicality as Jonathon Pryce

Low Notes
The not so grand, yet very confusing finale

Middle Note
James Horner's busy musical score (an apparent post-production change that Clayton was displeased with) is extremely conspicuous and occasionally distracting, but it's also a very clear product of its time (see the similarly toned Lady In White for support). I kind of love its blaring enthusiasm, but I can see how it might break the mood for some viewers

Stray Note
The Ewok Movie 2: Caravan of Courage fan in me finds it near impossible to not write the title of this film as Something Wicket This Way Comes

Lessons Learned
With heart problems, limit nightly activities to one drink and one cigar

Pillows make for surprisingly effective tarantula fighting weapons

Some folks draw lightning to them as a cat sucks in a baby's breath

Lessons Cribbed By An Actor From Another Movie
If Jim Nightshade looked familiar, it may have been because you recognized him from the very different (or maybe not different at all) slasher The Funhouse, where young Shawn Carson played the final girl's younger brother. In that Tobe Hooper film, Carson watches big sis hide out in a dark ride in order to stay inside after closing hours...the very same plan he and Will use to catch some extra glimpses of Dark's Carnival. Looks like someone was taking notes

Look! It's...
Royal Dano, playing yet another old hillbilly kook encountering some nefarious electricity at a circus with bad intentions

And hold the phone Foxy: Pam Grier as the silent but bewitching assistant to Mr. Dark

Rent/Bury/Buy
I found Something Wicked This Way Comes to be a wonderfully unusual treat from a bygone era, but I also went into the film knowing nary a detail about it. With that in mind, random sights like Pam Grier in a wedding gown or Royal Dano getting the electric chair were bound to keep me shocked, while the genuinely strong stuff--Robards hefty performance, Pryce's lyrical villain, Bradbury's intricate language--kept me glued to the screen. The film does indeed have a lot of problems in terms of its tone and story, making it even more shameful that the DVD release is so bare bones. This is a film that begs for some behind the camera discussion or deleted scenes. Without those, this is a definite recommend for a rental. It's simply too strange to not see.

Film Club Funhouse!

When Final Girl Stacie Ponder announced The Funhouse as this month’s Film Club choice, I smiled wider than the laughing fat lady who so eloquently frames the movie itself.

Love. Her.

And almost love The Funhouse, Tobe Hooper’s 1981 slasher is a perennial Doll’s House watch, one I grew up with via the USA Network and a well watched VHS tape. Though it never ascended to Killer Klowns-levels of adoration territory, this was something of a classic (by my definition) and one that I was excited to watch from a reviewing point of view.

Quick Plot: Two naughty teen couples (including one halved by Elizabeth “The Cop From The John Larroquette Show” Berridge as goodish girl Amy) decide to spend the night in a traveling carnival’s funhouse. Really, who can blame them? Between the dancing skeleton, horrifying animatronics, giant eyeball and comfy Alice In Wonderland-like grass, who wouldn’t want to lose their virginity inside?

Unfortunately, there’s the unpleasant business of catching the funhouse barker’s son breaking the neck of the sexy (to some) old fortune teller, played with great trashiness by an Academy Award nominee who in my heart, will always be Meryl Streep’s mom in She-Devil.

Have I told you lately that I love She-Devil?

Before you can pass the douche on the left hand side, the quartet is being hunted by the mutant murderer and his abusive pops, played with the same hatable Irish American charm actor Kevin Conway brought so devilishly to his role on Oz.

Rewatching The Funhouse for the first time in a few years, I was struck by a few happy factors I’d somehow never noticed. Primarily, as a horror film, it’s kind of awesome.

Now, I’m not calling The Funhouse a wrongly underrated masterpiece, but it is something of a dusty diamond in the rough of sleazy cinema. Hooper takes his time establishing the carnival as a seedy, potentially evil setting rich with cooky old crazies (at least three by my count) and mutated cows. 

At the same time, Larry Block’s script never quite ascends past typical. We know pretty quickly who will make it to the morning, even though Hooper does manage to squeeze some intense tension from a few key chases. Likewise, we get a mini-subplot involving Amy’s little brother and his Halloween-like hobbies, but where does it really go other than a brief scene of irony? And another fabulous scene with his and Amy’s grouchier than Oscar wet towels of parents, which in fairness, is super.

So as for story, The Funhouse could certainly use a stylish haircut. Something unexpected and new, like The Rachel highlighted with snakes. We don’t get that, but that doesn’t necessarily take away from the eerie atmosphere or lingering ickiness of a messy psuedo-rape scene. The film succeeds in making you tense and upset. I just wish it did a tad more.

High Points

We’re all agreed that the opening credits are about as perfect as anything in this world could possibly get, yes?

Tobe Hooper gets his share of sometimes deserved criticism, but jiminy jippers is this a well directed and shot film (extra kudos to cinematographer Andrew Laszio, he of Newsies, Southern Comfort, and everybody’s life-changing classic, Ghost Dad). You can pull out quite a bunch of stand-alone scenes that show just how effective his style is, including a few minutes following Amy’s rascally little brother that are done in complete, utter, and rather terrifying silence

An imposing score can sometimes kill a not too deep horror film, but John Beal’s music--a catchy blend of ominous circusness--amplifies the tension to pretty fabulous levels

Low Points

I know this was the early ‘80s, a time when strong women were confined to jobs that required shoulder pads, but did final girl Amy have to be such a helpless coward who could only stand and cry while her date’s being stabbed in front of her eyes?

Lessons Learned

You risk the ire of blonds when you preach...especially in bathrooms

Things most college aged girls of the 1980s didn’t like seeing with their sweethearts: preserved displays of mutated fetuses, nudie shows, and murder

Yet another reason not to smoke (you know, dropping a lighter upon the monster you’ve just seen kill a woman with his bare hands)

If you play your cards right on a first date, you can lose your virginity. If you play them wrong, you can be dry humped by a mutant

Rent/Bury/Buy

Though not without its problems, The Funhouse deserves a viewing from every genre fan. What it lacks in story innovation it more than makes up for with incredible mood, from the titular carnival ride to the effective stalk ‘n slash sequences underneath its floors. Sadly the DVD offers nothing but subtitles, making it not the best investment of your cash. At the same time, this is a film that you can go back to quite often. The brisk pacing and circus-like atmosphere makes it inherently rewatchable, at least if you have a soft spot for scantily clad middle aged fortune tellers and dark rides.

So rent the movie if you dare, but first, head over to Final Girl to check out all the other kool kids and their reviews. If you’re lucky, they just might wiggle and dance. 

That’s right, they wiggle AND they dance.

This Is a Dark Ride

As we pack away the bermuda shorts and citronella candles to welcome crispy autumn, there’s one summer institution that I’ll be slightly sad to watch hibernate: amusement parks. Sure, lucky Californians and other citizens get yearlong access to large scale outdoor playgrounds, but for those of us that must abide by Mother Nature’s mood swings, a mobile carnival that sets up in a supermarket parking lot is a temporary joy. 

Thankfully, like so many venues of our dimension, there are plenty of horror films that help to keep alive (and sometimes, undead) the memories of rickety ferris wheels, questionable carnies, and possessed bumper cars (that’s what Herbie: Fully Loadedwas about, yes?).

If you’ve seen the trailer for Zombieland (and let’s face it: if you’ve been anywhere near a movie theater or Internet connection, you’ve seen the trailer for Zombieland)then like me, you’re itching for the promising marriage of roller coasters  and cannibalism. For a brainy appetizer, check out Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City. While it doesn’t answer the question of whether zombies throw their arms in the air when descending down a big drop or if they take a good picture via those seizure-inducing photo flashes, this 1980 classic does does provide a nifty chase up my favorite staple of vintage theme parks, a wooden roller coaster (and by chase, I mean actual chase; these roasted marshmallow headed ghouls can run). A truly horrifying ending demonstrates what happens should the teenage ride operator not check your safety harness (20+ years before Final Destination 3 gave us grisly details. 

Roller coasters not your thing? There’s still plenty of rides that can instill insane levels of fear in under 2 minutes. Child’s Play 3 boasts one  of those unrealistically extravagant funhouses only seen in cinema. Motorized cars take you on a herky jerky spin through a maze of foamy gargoyles. The ride itself is hardly terrifying, but its physical setup--which includes 20 foot drops over mini-van sized fans--makes for the perfect grounds for soul possessing and doll hunting. Pity the poor maintenance man who has to patrol that death trap.

Appropriately enough, a more believable funhouse can be found in a film I’ve discussed here before, Tobe Hooper’s The Funhouse. This 1981 slasher is set in a weekend carnival overflowing with stale popcorn and ex-cons (the type of three day event my lax fire department sponsored every August). Best of all, its titular attraction is perfectly decrepit and looks like it’s already hosted the deaths of countless ticket holders, much less the naughty teens whose demise will follow.

Maybe you prefer stationary entertainment at your evening fair. Many a carnival goer enjoys some of the live shows offered, although unless your ticket says Disney or Dollywood, the odds are fairly high that you won’t be clamoring for autographs at the end of the show. Still, give Tod Browning some credit for amassing a real-life collection of sideshow workers in 1932’s Freaks. From giggly pinheads to limbless crawlers, this group doesn’t seem to rival Cirque de Soleil, but damnit if they don’t throw kickass parties. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that their boss gives them enough time off to occasionally deform anyone who disrespects one of their own. An alternative black-and-white after hours entertainment can be found in the German expressionist classic, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, where a somnobulist brings the house down by predicting the date of your death. Fun for the whole family!

For less authentic performers, visit Victor Salva’s Clownhouse, where a trio of mental patients escape the big house to kill and impersonate three bitter circus clowns. Sure, the whole chasing-three-teenagers-and-trying-to-kill-them thing is wrong, but what’s even worse is the actual clowns’ performance ettiquette. Dancing around like--well, clowns--they please the local kids fine enough, but why when it comes to choosing a volunteer, why does Cheezo the leader grab our young protagonist against his will? If a boy stares into your painted eyes with a look of true terror, shaking his head at your extended gloved hand, is it really wise to grab his clammy right and throw him in the center ring? You’re just asking for a kick in the nuts. The strangulation and identity theft? Not completely undeserved. 

Speaking of clowns, one can’t discuss theme parks without a wistful visit to Killer Klowns From Outer Space. A neon tent rivals Las Vegas’ Circus Circus and a drop down ball pit lands you in the Playboy Bunny mansion of rainbow headed jesterettes. Best of all is the prime selection of artery clogging food. I’ve seen my share of candy apples and fried oreos, but that’s nothing compared to the klowns’ selection of 4’ long blood-stuffed cotton candy, monster-making popcorn, and acidic cream pies that will melt even the surliest of night security guards.

Finally, to bid proper adieu to summer days and snow cones, stop by the hauntingly barren landscape of rigged games, flea ridden stuffed animals, and loose screwed rides in 28 Weeks Later. Sure, Carnival of Souls gets plenty of ghostly points for its artistic eeriness, but there’s something sad and understated about a carousel so clean of children’s laughter and motion sickness vomit. 

Have I missed any? Throw in your vote for best use of a tilt-a-whirl, haunted house, deep fryer, or any other treat found only inside those non-permanent gates of traveling fun.