Le Carnaval des âmes

Oh well, It was bound to happen. I finally saw the remake of Carnival of Souls. Was it worth it? In a word, NO! Forget the original set up about the lone survivor (Candace Hilligross) of an automobile accident, moving to a small town, and seeing visions of ghoulish people from the other side coming for her. This time around, A young woman (Bobbie Phillips), a victim of sexual abuse by a pedophile clown (comic Larry Miller) when she was younger, encounters the clown years later. He forces her to drive to the river and she deliberately crashes her car into the river.......you know the rest.

This movie is so terrible. It plays like a dirty USA made for TV movies of the week. The acting is similar to anything you would encounter while watching Melrose Place, etc. Wait til you get a load of what the people from the other side look like this time around. Whooo-boy. No expense was spared for the make up effects for these creatures.

I can just imagine the congratulatory slap on the backs the film makers received from each other. These bums probably think the remake of Psycho was better than the original. I think the audience for this movie is for those who think Urban legend, I Know What You Did This and Last Summer, etc. are great classics. I hope those "12 year old of all ages" enjoy the film. I sure as Hell didn't

I read a few months back, that Candace Hilligross was supposed to have a hand with the remake, but those around the making of the film back stabbed her off the production. I hope she has the last laugh when she sees the critical raspberries this film will rightfully receive.

Alex Grant (Bobbie Phillips) is haunted by carnival clown Louis Seagram (Larry Miller) who murdered her mother in front of her as a child. Seagram gets out and ambushes her in her car. It turns out to be a dream. She runs her mother's dockside bar with her sister Sandra (Shawnee Smith). Sandra is always pushing Alex to sell the place. She falls for a mysterious stranger (Paul Johansson).

This horror has nothing scary at all. It's a series of dream after dream after dream. Larry Miller could have been a creepy scary clown if the movie actually tried to be good. This movie doesn't try. The bar set looks cheap. It's suppose to be on a dock and yet it has a brick-lined basement. The whole thing looks bad. I also hate that it's sold as "Wes Craven Presents". I don't know how much he got paid but it's not enough no matter what. I've seen worst but this is pretty bad.

The eleven year-old girl Alex Grant witnesses her mother being raped and killed at home by the carnival clown Louis Seagram (Larry Miller). Many years later, Alex (Bobbie Phillips) works with her younger sister Sandra Grant (Shawnee Smith) in the Mermaid Inn that was owned by their mother. Out of the blue, Alex is attacked by Louis that was hidden in the backseat of her car on the day of the anniversary of the death of her mother. She struggles with Louis and drives her car into the sea to protect her sister. Then she swims back to the shore on the area of a carnival. From this moment on, Alex has nightmares and daydreams with Louis. What is happening with Alex?

"Carnival of Souls" (1962) is a low-budget cult movie with a story that seems to be an episode of "Twilight Zone". "Carnival of Souls" (1998) is not a remake and only borrows the title and a small part of the original storyline. The plot is boring and totally predictable, sort of a combination of "Jacob's Ladder" with "Carnival of Souls". The result is an average and forgettable horror film. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Parque Macabro" ("Macabre Park")

This movie jumped around so much, my stomach felt like a lotto tumbler. I can't believe they made this traipse! I couldn't make any sense of what was going on. It would just go from one scene, then reveal that to be a delusion, only to go to another scene, which was a delusion, then return to the first. Multiply that by about ten times and that's how confusing the movie got. And, to boot, nothing happened! What a rip!

It's hard to find a remake that actually does justice to the original,but this one is almost downright insulting.

Thre story has very little,if anything,to do with the one of the original.And whos idea was it to cast Larry Miller as the bad guy ?He is so terribly miscast.

One thing I noticed about all the positive reviews is that they say the movie should be considered a 'drama' instead of horror.Please tell me,why name it after a horror movie if it's supposed to be a drama ? I would never believe a 40 year old original could still outdo a modern remake but apparently it can.