Carnival of Blood

Carnival of Blood (1971)

Genres - Mystery  |   Release Date - Apr 5, 1972 (USA - Unknown), Jun 16, 1972 (USA - Limited)  |   Run Time - 80 min.  |   Countries - United States  |   MPAA Rating - PG
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Review by Paul Gaita

A trio of selfish people meet grisly ends while visiting New York's Coney Island amusement park. Their murders are investigated by district attorney hopeful Dan (Martin Barolsky), who learns that each of the victims visited a gypsy fortune teller who experienced a vision of their deaths moments before it happened. Dan must race to identify the killer before his fiancée Laura (Judith Resnick) becomes the next to die. With its hateful, ranting characters, grating performances, careless photography, and gloppy gore effects, Carnival of Blood could easily be mistaken for one of fellow New York-based exploitationer Andy Milligan's perverse horror-sex hybrids (Torture Dungeon, Guru, the Mad Monk). It even features one of Andy's signatures, a hunchback (played by a novice Burt Young under the nom du cinema John Harris) who serves as a punching bag for his cast mates. However, the film is actually the handiwork of Leonard Kirtman, aka adult film director Leon Gucci, whose pedigree is betrayed by Carnival's dismal camera work and mile-wide misogynist streak. Its sleepwalker pace, combined with the aggressively unpleasant dialogue and acting, should send most viewers packing within the first ten minutes; "bad" movie fans with superhuman patience may find some unintentional laughs buried deep here. Kirtman followed this with the equally unwatchable Curse of the Headless Horseman, which played on a double bill with Carnival in 1972.