Malatesta's Carnival of Blood

Malatesta's Carnival of Blood was thought to be a lost movie until 2000, when the director eventually released the film on DVD. Some might argue that it would have been better if the film had stayed lost, but then fans of trippy z-grade garbage would have been deprived of what has to be one of the weirdest movies of all time.

The film takes place in a dilapidated carnival whose owner, the enigmatic Malatesta (Daniel Dietrich), appears to be a total stranger to the term 'health and safety'. The rides not only look like death traps, they ARE death traps, the people who go on them winding up as tasty snacks for the ghouls who live in the caverns below, or simply losing their head (as one poor guy does while on the rollercoaster!). The newest employees at the carnival are Mr and Mrs Norris (Paul Hostetler and Betsy Henn), and their teenage daughter Vena (Janine Carazo), whose job it is to run a shooting gallery. However, the real reason the Norrises are there is to try and find out what happened to their son, who went missing while at the carnival. Friendly carnie Kit (Chris Thomas) tries to help Vena stay alive for the duration, but the attraction's vampiric manager Mr. Blood (Jerome Dempsey) has his heart set on drinking her blood.

Crazy camerawork, eccentric performances (a wild-eyed litter-picking ghoul, singing cannibals, a transvestite fortune teller, and Hervé Villechaize as creepy dwarf Bobo), incomprehensible dialogue, and set design that consists largely of assorted junk, and large sheets of plastic, aluminium and bubble wrap: Malatesta's Carnival of Blood is quite unlike anything I have seen before, and quite unlike anything remotely resembling coherent film-making. The action randomly veers off into nightmarish surreality at the drop of a hat, and features bizarre characters who drift in and out of scenes, while director Christopher Speeth exercises his creativity with his oddball aesthetic combined with disconcerting sound design (the weird visuals including back projection of horror classics The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame). There's even some fun gore to be had: the aforementioned rollercoaster decapitation, death by litter-picking stick, a juicy spike in the eye, and the half-eaten body of some poor schmuck.

The result is an undeniably unique experience, but so is pouring a bucket of fire ants down your trousers.

3.5/10, rounded up to 4 for Villechaize talking in rhyme.

Apparently, this film was presumed lost for many, many years. If you ask me, there were more things "lost" here. Like writer/director Christopher Speeth's control over his own twisted imagination, or the minds and sanity of literally all the people who were involved! This movie is messed up, and there isn't too much else I can write about it.

A family of three, parents and daughter in her late teens, infiltrate in a sinister carnival and attempt to fit in, but their real mission is to find out what happened to their son/brother who vanished without a trace but was last seen at the same carnival. Oh yes, there is something resembling a plot, but it's subordinate - by far - to the grueling Z-grade atmosphere, the uniquely eccentric cast of characters and the wide variety of random moments of sheer madness. Who knows, maybe Speeth aimed for art-house but couldn't overcome the budgetary restrictions? All I know is there are ghouls that munch and gaze at silent horror films in the carnival's backstage area, park rides that decapitate people or make them disappear altogether, vampires that walk around in broad daylight, transvestite fortune tellers, and a rhyming dwarf who pops out of secret carny wagon doors.

Pure 70s grindhouse insanity, complete with thick more-orange-than-red blood, decors and scenery that seem to come straight out of the junkyard and the director's family & friends filling in all the supportive roles to do him a favor... or out of pity. I can't possibly rate this any higher than an already very generous 5/10, but rest assured that it comes recommended.

An off-road ramshackle amusement park is maintained and operated by an odd assemblage of resident vampires, ghouls, zombies...and Herve Villachaiz. When night falls and the gates are closed, these fun-loving fiends retreat into their subterranean home within the murky depths below the park. A strange family unit of sorts, they enjoy watching old horror classics while they wait like hungry spiders for juvenile delinquents and random miscreants to illegally enter the carnival grounds.

This divergent, psychedelirious amateur freefall is suffused with murky atmosphere and strange, unearthly distortions...a cheap and gangly ghoulash prepared with resourceful creativity on a piggy-bank budget(the interesting practical FX make good use of plastic tarp, bubble wrap, and other industrial materials). It is, to say the least, comparable to little else.

MALATESTA'S CARNIVAL takes a prominent seat at the table of supremely WTF cinema...an esprit-de-corps shared by DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS, GODMONSTER OF INDIAN FLATS, BLOOD FREAK, et al. You'll either like it or you won't, but you *WILL* remember the experience..

7/10.

Malatesta's Carnival of Blood (1973)

*** (out of 4)

Malatesta (Daniel Dietrich) runs a fun carnival where he hired a couple people to help run the place. What Malatesta doesn't realize is that the two people are basically working undercover because they're searching for their child that went missing at the carnival. What the parents don't realize is all the sinister things going on there including the fact that Malatesta is a vampire.

MALATESTA'S CARNIVAL OF BLOOD is the only film from director Christopher Speeth and it was pretty much forgotten and never seen for thirty-years. All of this changed when the director started selling copies of a DVD from his personal website. Before long the film gained a small reputation but then Arrow Video released it to Blu-ray and DVD in a Special Edition form. As the introduction by Stephen Thrower states, it's a pretty weird little film and certainly one that deserves more of a following.

If you're looking for a coherent storyline then you probably won't enjoy this movie. There's actually very little of an actual plot and instead the film really plays off like a dream you might be having while you're also running a very high fever. Some have called the film's look psychedelic, which might be a good way to describe it. The story is basically being told by the visuals, which are actually quite striking and I'd argue that the dream-like nature of the picture actually works for it. The entertainment value certainly comes from the bizarre and surreal atmosphere.

The performances are a bit all over the place with some of them being incredibly good while others are clearly being done by inexperienced actors. Still, none of them are bad enough to ruin the film. There's also an effective music score that helps build up the atmosphere and there are some really nice gore effects throughout the picture. There's not a lot of violence but when it does happen with get some of that classic 70's overly-bright red blood.

MALATESTA'S CARNIVAL OF BLOOD isn't the greatest film ever made and there are certainly some flaws throughout it including some pacing issues. Still, at just 74-minutes the film is certainly worth watching and it's bizarre and surreal atmosphere really makes it stand out.

Malatesta's carnival of blood welcomes its guests with cannibalistic ghouls and blood-sucking vampires.It's weird and very loosely narrated assault on the viewer's senses.The sets and images are gloriously surreal,the atmosphere is dreamy and there is a nice amount of blood as we see the ghouls devouring its human prey.The action is fast and there are some truly odd characters for example Malatesta,a creepy dwarf named Bobo with his annoying French accent,psychotic Mr.Blood and a transvestite fortune teller.If you liked Frederick Hobbs movies or "Death Bed:The Bed that Eats" check out "Malatesta's Carnival of Blood".8 out of 10.A surreal treat of epic proportions!