Carnival of Fear: Closed for the Season

Closed for the Season aka Carnival of Fear offers something that seems more like a feverdream, a stream of consciousness excursion into fear that gets rather muddled in the second and third acts. Director Jay Woelfel has to be given credit for trying to create an alternate universe where fear and regret exist tangibly and haunt the lives of the characters. Yes, it's a very slow burn, but it's fascinating. Woelfel has helmed many films, mostly in the horror and action genres, so it's interesting to see this approach. It's also understandable that so many reviewers would hate this movie--it's not a "gotcha" horror movie. Other reviewers have compared it to "Malatesta's Carnival of Blood", which has a very dreamlike, metaphysical feel to it. In some ways, it also resembles Herk Harvey's "Carnival of Souls", although that film has a very clear-cut rationale that is revealed at the end. Both films are exceptional in their use of cinematography to set an eerie mood. The whole idea of a closed amusement park being a receptacle for the negative energy produced by human suffering is a great metaphor, and Woelfel tries to layer on other ideas as well, but it seems like too many metaphysical concepts spoil the broth. If you like your horror with a lot of esoteric philosophical concepts drenched in atmosphere, then this one might be for you.

A young woman and a man (Aimee Brooks and Damian Maffei) find themselves stuck at Chippewa Lake Park that's been closed for decades, but terrorizes them with haunting memories.

"Closed for the Season" (2010) was written, scored and directed by Jay Woelfel at the cost of only $250,000. I saw his previous full-length movie, "Ghost Lake," from six years earlier, which cost way less, $110,000, and I wanted to see what he could do with over twice the budget. Well, this is noticeably better on a technical level, and is impressive from that angle, but he omitted the most important part, a compelling story.

I was interested in seeing it because you can't beat the carnival atmosphere. And the dilapidated location makes it all the better, sort of like "Scream Park" that came out two years later and was shot in northwest Pennsylvania's Conneaut Lake Park. That flick is worth seeing since it has a coherent story that holds your interest. Not so here, unhappily.

Yet if you have a penchant for artsy indies or are interested in what Chippewa Lake Park looks like after being closed for 31 years, when shooting was done in 2009, you'll find something to appreciate. It was a happening place in the Roaring 20s.

The film's overlong at 1 hour, 54 minutes, and was shot at Chippewa Lake Park, which is located 27 miles west of Akron and 5 miles northwest of Seville.

GRADE: C-/D+

Kept hoping it'd get better but the first 5 minutes pretty much tell you how interesting the whole movie is going be. The boring just never ends. It just goes on, and on, and on. Occasionally the boring gets spiced up with some confusing, some irrelevant, and some totally lame CGI. The story makes little sense, the actors are terrible and the plot is retarded. It keeps jumping around from one strange (and still boring) scene to another as if whoever wrote it, simply made it up as they went along, hoping to make a quick buck. Pathetic. Boring. You don't even care how it ends or what happens to any of the characters. I couldn't wait for it to hurry up and end. If you have absolutely nothing better to do and someone else paid for it - meh, go ahead and waste your time. Otherwise - avoid.

A girl wakes up into a dilapidated amusement park and seems to drift from nightmare to nightmare until she meets the caretaker of the park, who's willing to anchor her back to reality. But the nightmare doesn't end that easily and the newly-found couple are haunted and pursued by the ghosts of the park, including the Monster from the Lake, the Alligator and most of all, Carny, who holds the key to their escape.

The 1st five minutes firmly establish a dreamlike quality, an ethereal half-sleep that holds on until the very last reel. For once, the CGI helps more than hinder, giving the effects an old Hollywood magic. Still, the strength of "CFTS" is that it never drifts into complete absurdity, even at its most awkward. Each kooky segment leads to the final revelation, which of course is love.

There's enough humor, grue & thrills to keep the unprepared audience satisfied, and those that are willing to take the plunge will be taken for a creepy and poetic ride.

Yeah, it doesn't get much worse than CLOSED FOR THE SEASON, which has to be one of the cheapest, dumbest, worst-looking horror films I've seen in a good while. The only - and I mean ONLY - good thing this production has going for it is that it was filmed in a genuinely abandoned theme park somewhere in the US. But everything else is the pits.

The story is vague, ambiguous, and boring. There's not enough plotting to sustain an hour-long running time so why they made this an excruciating two hours I'll never know. The storyline involves a young woman (Aimee Brooks, forgettable) trapped in an abandoned theme park at night, where events from the past are forced to play themselves out for eternity.

There are extraneous characters who come and go in the plot and attempts at a surreal atmosphere a la CARNIVAL OF SOULS but none of the atmosphere-building works. Instead we get tons of dumb moments involving incredibly cheesy gore effects and people dressed up in CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON costumes. CLOSED FOR THE SEASON also employs some absolutely HORRENDOUS CGI effects in the form of a CGI roller-coaster in the opening scene. I actually guffawed when I saw how awful it looked. Sadly it's the most entertaining scene (albeit unintentionally) of an otherwise worthless film.