The Devil’s Carnival ~ 2012

The Devil’s Carnival is a fantastically dark wonderment for the tormented soul. The storyline deals directly with the seedy side of the human conscience, focusing on three characters that deal with very real, and very dangerous problems.

Given one final chance to prove they can learn from the mistake they made in their human life, each character is given a test…for their soul. The three main characters in this first installment are John, Mrs.Merrywood, and Tamara.

John is a grieving father who has lost his son. He spends the entirety of the movie searching for him in the carnival, facing different obstacles along the way. Mrs.Merrywood is a kleptomaniac who has to learn to face her personal demon, and Tamara is a young girl that continually let’s herself be victimized by men.

This demented piece of cinema is executed perfectly. Every main character is believable and relate-able, the music is ominous yet catchy, you’ll find yourself singing it for days.

The carnies are both mysteriously beautiful and dementedly cruel in their own right. Executing all of the judgement tasks set out by Lucifer without question, and often times even enjoying them. Many of the carnies are returning actors from Darren and Terrance’s first movie; Repo! The Genetic Opera, and so they have excellent chemistry together.

And then there’s the power houses. You’ll never find a better head-to-head of God vs Satan then Terrance Zdunich and Paul Sorvino. Each actor embodies exactly what this film is all about. I’ve never seen someone command the role of God so powerfully, and that’s rather something, considering he’s barely in this installment. Overall, if you’re looking for a spectacularly sinister musical extravaganza…The Devil’s Carnival is exactly what you’re looking for.

Bonus Points: The Devil’s Carnival was made into an actually traveling roadshow. Darren and parts of the cast went around all of America and parts of Canada, hosting TDC showings. There was live entertainment at each place, which included strippers, sideshow freaks, and magicians, and then a showing of the movie.

Overall I rate this movie: 5/5, for a perfect harmony of costuming, setting, acting, and development.

Osama Game~2011

Osama Game is about a class of high school students who all receive a text at midnight from “The King” stating that a game is now in effect, what the rules are, and that further instructions will be left for them to follow.

The rules are: All students in the class must participate. After receiving an order, you have 24 hours to complete the task assigned. If you do not complete your task, you will be punished. There is no withdrawing from the game.

As students start to fail tasks, or are given tasks where there is indefinitely a loser, they realize that the punishment is for them to disappear…Forever. Remaining students try to figure out who the “King” really is, but it is not until there are only two students left that it becomes clear who’s really in control of the situation.

Overall, the movie was excellent. It had great character emotion, showing how the actions of one person could greatly effect another. Also how humans react when thrown into a situation they have no control over, nor do they understand. There were several conflicts along the way which are either solved, or escalated until someone snaps.

The main “villain”, known as the King throughout the movie, and later revealed as one of the students has an excellent back story that evokes strong feelings. In the end, I found myself not at all caring about the other people who had disappeared throughout the movie, and wishing that one day they could have the type of life they had always wished for.

Overall I rate this movie: 4.5/5 for strong character development and emotional situations.Catagory: Horror/Supernatural

Smiley- 2012

Smiley

Directed by: Micheal J Gallagher

Starring: Caitlin Gerard, Melanie Papalla, and Shane Dawson

Fever Productions- Level 10 Films

Best Movie Quote: Ideology ­­is the complete knowledge of what we think we know

The movie starts off with what I like to call the ANOES* effect. Centered around one female who you think will probably be the lead character, only to kill her off in the first 10 minutes. Normally I find the ANOES effect boring and predictable, and in this case while it isn’t very exciting, they managed to somewhat balance it with a very inappropriate female child that served no value to the plot other then to offend you as a new type of side character. Also in these first 10 minutes, you’re already subjected to two extremely cheap scare tactics and two ass shots of the would-be female lead.

We’re introduced to the killer, a serial killer named Smiley, an urban legend. If while in a video chat on HideAndGoChat Online, you type the sentence “I did it for the lulz” Smiley will appear behind the person you are chatting with, and murder them. For some reason, all of these videos later end up on YouTube.

As it transitions into our actual female lead, Ashley, we are bombarded with a sad amount of horror genre clichés. Pretty and smart Ashley finds herself moving away from home for the first time because of a parent’s death. Deciding to go to college and live with people her own age, she finds herself rooming with Proxy, a punk rock cyber-hacker that introduces her to the world of binge drinking, acid taking, and partying all night long.

It’s at this first party that we’re introduced to our next two main characters. Zane is an incredibly charming asshole, making you like him yet also want someone in the movie to punch him in the face. Binder is a socially awkward outcast, whom is bullied by Zane and his friends for being a ‘Pedobear’ because he reports them when they post child pornography on 4Chan. At first I found myself thinking the movie may actually have a redeeming quality in these two characters…Except that for main characters, they hold no significance, and we almost never actually see Binder again on screen.

Finally at about 25-30 minutes in, we’re done with character introductions and the two main girls have found out that someone they know has appeared in a Smiley video. Not believing that it’s real, they decide to test the Smiley urban legend online for themselves… which obviously results in some random pervert online getting murdered, and the girls freaking out. They come to the conclusion that telling absolutely no one will keep them safe, and it’s at this point I’m starting to yawn already.

Ashley becomes more paranoid about Smiley due to her guilt of killing someone using him, and so starts asking around about him. We find out absolutely nothing we didn’t already know before, though this is the one time we see Binder on screen again, and him and Ashley have some weird ‘let’s bond over talking about a fictional serial killer’ moment. Smiley decides soon after that happens that this is a great moment in the movie to randomly come after Ashley…In what appear to be both real and a dream. So I’m starting to feel like we’ve gone straight from the ANOES effect straight into some weird cyber/dream mixed ANOES rip off.

When Ashley tries to explain that this online killer is also coming for the people who summoned them, her cynical room mate puts her on track to a therapist that gives her anti anxiety medication. Then we find out immediately after that Zane is also on to this theory, which he shares with the girls…Yet they keep Ashley on the medication.

At this point I’m 45 minutes into this 135-minute movie…And nothing has happened. I’ve had like four cheap scares thrown my way, the dream sequences have increased, and there’s been three deaths that are not only completely unsatisfying, I barely get to see them!

In all honesty, I can’t even tell you what happens after that point, because I fell asleep.

Technical Breakdown

Acting: Andrew Allen (Zane) and Roger Bart (Professor Clayton, whom I didn’t even mention above) are really the only two in the movie who can carry their roles. Caitlyn Gerard (Ashley) managed to get in one scream that I would actually consider a decent Queen Scream*…but other then that, people just seemed very one-dimensional.

Filming: The filming wasn’t bad actually, other then the oncam Internet videos of the deaths. I had no complaints there.

Overall Rating:

 I’d give this movie a 1 out of 5. I managed to make it 45 minutes in, which is longer then I’ve made it through some movies, but overall…I literally have nothing good to say about this movie. Except that maybe if you’re having trouble sleeping, you should gives this a watch, it’ll put you right out.

*ANOES- A Nightmare On Elm Street
*Queen Scream- Amazing actresses in the horror community are referred to as “Scream Queens”…and a good Scream Queen needs a good Queen Scream ;D