This film was not particularly entertaining or engaging but it did have some interesting and fleetingly memorable moments and characters that feel like it could have inspired Tobe Hooper.
I enjoyed the character of the trash collecting carnival ghoul with the stick and sack for picking up trash. He seemed so thrilled to find candy bar wrappers, yet was just as eager to quickly turn the pointy end of said stick on to unsuspecting, helpless carnival goers! His lazy, independently moving left eye will haunt me for days.
I did seriously love the atmosphere of the real amusement park with rollercoasters and funhouse rides. That kind of atmosphere is absolutely ripe for bizarre and terrifying horror; but the filmmakers utilization left me wanting more.
I wasn't crazy about the cheap set decoration of plastic bubble wrap and sheets of aluminum but I did appreciate the horde of cannibalistic underground dwellers and their penchant for tearing people limb from limb though unlike Romero, this was mostly implied. Not much in the way of gory goods, aside from one fun beheading.
So much of the film feels like a dream within a dream and you're just existing in Malatesta's wicked world; however I really didn't find Malatesta or his sidekick Blood convincing; though Bobo the dwarf was decent.
I feel I have to give this movie a 3 out of 10, because it is not only below average in entertainment value and fun. I just can't see myself rewatching this film aside from a few clips near the beginning and towards the middle of the film.
From about mid way to the end the Carnival of Blood just completely falls into impressionist nothingness. I sadly just didn't care.
Is it worth at least a one time watch? Maybe...but you could have a lot more fun with Tobe Hooper or George A Romero's early work instead.
Review of Malatesta's Carnival of Blood
