Carnage

"A newlywed couple moves into their new home and are ready to settle into their new life together. After settling in, the couple begins experiencing some strange occurrences in the home, and discovers, to their horror, the truth behind them. It seems the former owners of the home were a newlywed couple that committed suicide years before, and are now haunting the place," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis. That the other couple committed suicide in the house is certainly no surprise. In fact, there is no suspense to speak of, in "Carnage". The film is simply a series of gory deaths, around the house… while a dog barks, indecently, outside… Not only does the couple NOT leave the haunted house, they invite other couples to join in the fun. Do not watch this movie without having other things around, to help pass the time.

* Carnage (1984) Andy Milligan ~ Leslie Den Dooven, Michael Chiodo, Deeann Veeder, John Garitt

My review was written in April 1986 after watching the movie on Media Home Entertainment video cassette.

"Carnage" is an old-hat, poorly made horror picture, shot in New York in 1983 under the title "Hell House". Filmmaker Andy Milligan, whose heyday was about 15 years earlier with pics like "The Ghastly Ones", delivers pure corn here and the feature went directly to home video without a domestic theatrical release.

Leslie Den Dooven and Michael Chiodo portray newlyweds Carol and Jonathan who move into a bargain house (a la "The Money Pit") where three years earlier a groom killed his bride and then committed suicide. Of course the site is haunted by that couple and many visitors are killed in gory fashion while inanimate objects move around amid other supernatural happenings.

For unexplained reasons, Carol and Jonathan love the house and won't leave no matter what mayhem occurs. Not surprisingly, they also become eternal residents. Picture is padded with inconsequential footage and a boring subplot involving a pregnant friend of theirs, Ann (Chris Baker) whose marriage is on the rocks.

Gore is exaggerated and phony, while special effects shots are amateurish. Milligan's use of a background score made up of library music makes the film seem at least 20 years older than its copyright date.

I bet this film had a great poster. They must've spent the money on something.

This is an ultra-cheap knockoff of films like The Amityville Horror and Poltergeist. It's about a newly-wed couple who move into a new house in which the previous tenants – another newly-wed couple – died in a sort of suicide pact. It's not exactly like this is an original concept. The problem Carnage has primarily is that its ambition vastly outstrips its budget and talent. There are many, many ghostly occurrences depicted but 90% of them seem to be bits of furniture and gardening equipment moving slightly. Scary kettle! Scary paper! Scary candle! It's basically atrocious. There are a few gore scenes spliced into the story to liven things up but they are not exactly convincing; especially the scene where the burglar is disembowelled – his guts looks suspiciously like Chinese noodles. None of this would matter so much but the pacing of the film is bad and the overall effect is one of boredom.

It's difficult to recommend this unfortunately.

I love Carnage. When I picked it up at a flea market I was a bit leery of it because the box touted itself as a horror/comedy. It couldn't be further from the truth...it's a quite serious horror film, the only thing that will induce chuckles is the outlandishly silly special effects (so silly, in fact, it looks almost as if it were made to look cheap on purpose). Bad acting, dorky-looking ghosts, possessed household appliances, skitzophenic mother-in-laws and lotsa lotsa blood n' guts equals one hell of a good B-movie session. The ending reminded me of the one from VIDEODROME somehow. No idea why, though.

Very hard to find, but worth every second of the search for addicts of horrible cinema such as myself.

-No Nukes, the Satanic Pikachu Pika pikaaaaa pika pi chipa pikaCHUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!! (stay cool, surf well, watch lots! pikaCHUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!)

This invidious little soup-kitchen spook show opens with a newlywed couple's grisly murder/suicide scene, then shifts to the sale of their home. The new inhabitants are quite possibly the least expressive actors I have ever witnessed in any realm of theater, and their pea-brained characters steadfastly refuse to vacate the house, instead opting to sit around waiting for more freaky things to take place(of course, if characters in films of this type were at all humanly intelligent, then most flicks in the genre would be the length of a TV commercial).

Nothing even remotely scary takes place in CARNAGE(unless the sight of electrical appliances turning on happens to freeze your blood), and a modicum of workaday gore effects appears to be the contingent highlight of this discreditable supernatural scramble. For Andy Milligan masochists only, but frankly, his endearing monogram touches are only scantly evident here.

3.5/10