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.

I have doubt's whether Closed for the Season is a deliberate effort in magical realism rather than the usual kind of low budget horror film dissonance that comes from plot holes and poor technical quality, but that's all i have. The goal for the film makers, as illusive as it is, appears to be creating a constant sense of disorientation and not much else. Whether that goal is achieved or not is not for me to say. I'm not confident even on what the feat is, let alone if it was defeated.

Reviewing the film first on Youtube, i was ok to dismiss Closed for the Season as pretentious hipster crap. But that was until i recently rewatched Malatesta's Carnival of Blood (1973), a film with striking similarities to Closed for the Season that i had a good time with. Not wanting to keep double standards based on vintage, i thought i'd revise my opinion. I have also come across director Woelfel's highly ambitious and much more engaging Beyond Dream's Door, which, above everything else, made me realise that i might not do enough research.

Because with watching these two films, i get a better idea of what Season was going for. That is was made by a man who spent the majority of the 80s trying to get his passion project off the ground and not by grad trust funders with no respect for the horror genre. And my main problem with Season was issues revolving around sincerity. But the fact that i considered the work of a 20+ year vet to be on the level of fresh faced amateurs still backs up another point i made, which is Season failing to engage in it's sound and images.

Malatesta was an experimental short expanded to feature length, set in a carnival, with impoverished production values and under-lit cinematography. But unlike Season, it was made by a guy who was a documentarian as well as an experimental film maker. Even if the images were poorly defined, they were numerous and creatively framed. Season's cinematography overall is both flat as well as dark. Malatesta also definitely had stronger continuity in both it's themes and tone, which helped retain engagement.

But Closed for the Season, like Malatesta, does feature solid art design and atmosphere throughout. Unlike Malatesta, or Beyond Dream's Door, the acting is poor as well as the pacing. Scenes are drawn out way too long and your mileage will vary. Kudos for still being a unique horror film amongst its contemporaries. It's intentionally confusing instead of just being confusing through ineptness. It's intentionally dream-like and surreal, but has very little to say. Something about carny culture dying or something. Whatever the point was, it wasn't worth bringing up it seems because the whole film comes off as a random bunch of scenes that have very little effect. For the life of me, I could not find a reason to care after twenty minutes. It all just felt like pretentious nonsense.

Closed for the Season is indeed one of the most unique horror films I've seen from the 2010s and time may be kind. If you are really that desperate to see something that is south of the Asylum, then I would recommend Closed for the Season as it does try something new. Jay Woelful is obviously dealing with resources that appear to be even more disparate than he was in '89 in his debut feature and i can appreciate how he has retained his esoteric ambitions. But the film has no point and it doesn't have enough spectacle to inspire the levels of charity in the audience that this film's indulgences would require.

What were these folks thinking when they cobbled together a full two hours of two bad actors running around an abandoned fairground being harassed by an old man portraying some sort of ghost-carny? They must have been making this one up as they went along, because it starts off confusing, settles into mediocrity, then tries to give you some explanation if you're still awake by the end of it.

This long, boring, film reminds of that old eighties film Spookies. Only worse. Yep, this film is worse that Spookies.

I'd imagine they were aiming for some sort of vibe like The Beyond, where the whole film plays out like a surreal nightmare that makes little sense, but is ultimately rewarding.

In fact, just watch that instead.

As a roller coaster nerd I was drawn to this film, unable to find it for years. All I saw was Brenna Roth's short documentary about the park, which featured the trailer for the movie. That documentary lead me to do some abandoned explorations and fall in love with that too. The alure lasted for many years, maybe my high praise is more based on the satisfaction of actually seeing the thing. But I actually think the film itself is really good. Sure there are moments of corny production (thankfully the special effects shots are limited) but WHAT DO YOU EXPECT IN A FILM ABOUT AN ABANDONED AMUSEMENT PARK COMING TO LIFE ALL TWISTED? Won't put spoilers in because this film deserves a good review without spoilers, but with some of the twists the corny production actually enhances things. I personally think a lot of the bad reviews are from people who stopped watching after the first couple minutes. A surprising amount of the lore is based on the real history of the park. I found myself genuinely invested in the characters and fantacising what I would do/how they'd react to me and not just watching for footage of Chippewa Lake Park I enjoy aestheticly, and I've watched multiple times. There are nuggets you might not pick up on first viewing. Interesting to note they changed the closing year to 1986 as opposed to 1978 and the events of the film take place in 2006. That doesn't spoil any details about the story, and I won't say how that's planted. Just an interesting nugget.

Started watching this under the UK DVD title "Carnival of Fear", thought it looked familiar but couldn't be sure. Not until after I sat through 109 minutes of this crap that I realised that I had previously watched it, probably on TV, under it's original title. It really could make a good cure for insomnia. Boring, incredibly slow, confusing, rubbish effects and some very bad acting (in particular the guy who plays the carney. On the other hand Aimee Brooks as the heroine was quite passable). Dialogue such as "Where did she go?" "How should I know? I was too busy eating you!" GROAN. The only good, or rather interesting, thing about this movie was the filming location of a real life abandoned amusement park. Watching this was a painful experience. Under any title it's a loser.