In the grand tradition of zany, low-budget horror-comedy romps, has there ever been a concept this zany? Surely there have been few this low-budget. Surely there have been few this fabulously, unapologetically blunt, forthright, and deliberately overcooked in almost every way. Characters, dialogue, scene writing, narrative, acting, lighting, cinematography, pacing, direction, editing, effects, music, and all else are written and executed with astoundingly insincere bluster, conscious cockamamie baloney that throws all good sense out the window and dares us to hate it. There are dashes in 'CarousHell' of classic slasher vibes with an equine twist (get it? Because unicorn horns are usually depicted as a spiral?), and traces of supernatural horror, but the movie wantonly goes so far off the rails that any fragment of "horror" is relegated to no more than half the runtime. In its place we get extended referential humor, tongue-in-cheek mockery, plainly absurdist situational humor, exaggerated characters and scene writing, preposterous quips/one-liners/otherwise dialogue (including puns, naturally), sight gags, sex jokes - and, why not, gratuitous nudity. And it's a total blast!
For all the self-indulgent excess and bare-faced inauthenticity, however, nothing in 'CarousHell' is sloppy or accidental. Shoestring silliness is exactly what filmmaker Steve Rudzinski does, and there's stupendous wit and intelligence underlying every iota of indecent inanity. The root concept is brazen; the horror elements are secondary in execution and as ingenuine as they could be; the comedy is outrageous and overdone - yet all of it is totally by intent, and delightfully sharp. It's not especially often that a feature makes me laugh this much, but from start to finish I had such a fantastic time watching. Putting aside personal preferences - I completely understand how this won't appeal to everyone - the real criticisms that come to mind are very few. Even for folks like me who love what they see, I think 'CarousHell' struggles a bit at first to find its tone as early scenes establish the characters and scenario and set up the remainder; a title that's already an acquired taste initially comes off even more so. More substantively, some of the humor doesn't actually land; as funny as the film is for the most part, some attempted jokes are too indelicate to work, or border on outright offensive. Even for a picture so ludicrously off the wall, a few instances just don't pan out.
Yet when all is said and done these shortcomings are nothing compared to the riotous entertainment 'CarousHell' has to offer. Much careful thought and hard work went into making this nonsense a reality, and the payoff is tremendous. Why, for as over the top as many of the visual effects are, a particular few examples are unexpectedly great; one can't help but wonder if that's where most of the budget ended up going. Throw in some fun music, spirited and committed performances, and swell looks for each character that seem to have been devised among the contributors themselves, and this is just such a joy. I had mixed expectations from the outset, not just on the basis of this title alone but also formed from (limited) prior experience with Rudzinski's films (not all are equal), and they have been handily blown away. This will hardly be a feature that appeals to genre purists or broad audiences, yet for those open to all the wide, weird, wild possibilities that cinema has to offer, I think 'CarousHell' is marvelously enjoyable and well worth a mere 70 minutes of our time!
