DVD Review: The Wicker Tree (15) / Director: Robin Hardy / Screenplay: Robin Hardy / Starring: Brittania Nicol, Henry Garrett, Graham McTavish, Honeysuckle Weeks, Christopher Lee / Release Date: April 30^th

Robin Hardy’s companion piece to the legendary 1973 Wicker Man fails to live up to the psychological horror of its original.

Based upon Hardy’s novel, Cowboys for Christ, two Texas Christians, Beth Boothby (Brittania Nicol) and Steve Thompson (Henry Garrett) travel to Scotland to preach the word of God to the pagan locals. The couple end up in the small village of Tressock and agree to become the Queen and Laddie of the local Mayday celebration in an effort to win over the natives and convert them to Christ. Things soon take a turn for the sinister. The good folk of Tressock have a different idea on how to ‘celebrate’ Mayday, and it doesn’t involve Morris dancing and flag poles, that’s for sure. Steve is led astray by Lolly (Honeysuckle Weeks) and is burdened with shame by his little romp with her in the local river, while Beth, who used to be a sexy pop star, is desperate to distance herself from her once sinful ways.

The Wicker Tree retains some of the elements of the original, a certain 70’s feel, loosely drawn characters, sex scenes that make you chuckle, yet it still manages to come across as a watered down version of Wicker Man. The satirical humour present in The Wicker Tree doesn’t quite work, apart from the subtitled sex scene – intentional or not. Both the Texas Missionaries are unlikable, almost repugnant characters, defined by their faith and constrained by the script, never quite managing to break out and make an audience sympathise enough to care whether they live or die. The villagers have more engaging characters, Sir Lachlan Morrison (Graham McTavish) Lady Delia (Jacqueline Leonardas) and even a cameo from Christopher Lee who appeared in Wicker Man. Their motivations are far better mapped out than our bumbling protagonists.

It’s all a far cry from Edward Woodward’s performance as Sergeant Neil Howie. A character that, despite being a devout Christian, wasn’t defined by his faith and managed to win the audience’s heart right from the get-go.

The Wicker Tree does successfully raise itself above the 2006 remake of Wicker Man – a film considered by most to be one of the worst remakes of recent years. Also, it makes a fine addition to the sub-genre of horror, defined by Mark Gatiss as ‘Folk Horror’. Other films of this short-lived genre include: Witchfinder General and Blood on Satan’s Claw.

Still, it’s as much a tribute to a bygone era of film making as any addition to horror. Sadly, the film never quite lives up to its expectations, and while certain scenes prove interesting, it is, in the main, a tedious and a time consuming affair.

Extras: None

DVD Review: Humanity’s End (TBC) / Director: Neil Johnson / Screenplay: Michael John Smith, Neil Johnson / Starring: Jay Laisne, Rochelle Vallesse, Cynthia Ickes, William David Tullin / Release Date: May 21st

Space: 2820. The human race has been all but wiped out, humanity usurped by a genetically-engineered ‘homo superior’ race known as Konstrukts and a race of Borg-like psychic super-aliens called the Nephilim. Between them they’ve decided that humanity’s a waste of space and set about wiping out earth colonies all over the Universe and blowing up the earth – all in the first five minutes. But Mankind’s an indomitable species and we live on; aboard a ricketty space tub we find sleazy space captain Derasi Vorde, his doe-eyed maintenance officer Contessa, a young girl named Alicia who has the ignominy of being a “breeding clone”, a dwarf clone-thing named Sorgon 387 and a petulant AI unit which runs the ship. What chance has the pure essence of the human race amidst such motley company? Let me tell you…

I really should hate Humanity’s End with every fibre of my critical being. It’s eighty minutes of well dodgy CGI (spaceships and explosions galore, none of them remotely convincing to anyone over the age of about two), pompous repetitive music, a script which wants to be a cross between Serenity/Hitch-hiker’s but ends up more like Carry On Up Uranus (fnarr, fnarr) with its oddly-inappropriate and slightly sleazy subplot about Vorde and his desperation to… er… protect the purity of the human race by mating with breeder Alicia. But oddly enough, Humanity’s End is a hard film to dislike because it’s so clumsy and heavy-handed it’s actually quite endearing. Plus, we don’t actually get that many spaceship films these days so it’s a bit of a change to watch something full of poorly-rendered space battles and people with silly names.

Now it’d be churlish to expect Prometheus on a budget of $2 million and I suppose we have to grudgingly admire director/co-writer Johnson for his ambition and his desire to tell such a huge scale story with little more than loose change by Hollywood standards. So his script is peppered with these tortuous ‘character moments’ where Vorde seduces Alicia whilst Contessa yearns for Vorde’s affections and Alicia grizzles about her lot as a baby-maker. In between are these big FX sequences which never really quite come off and a sense of threat which is so huge it’s impossible to really take it seriously. But against all expectations, and after all the bang and clatter and booming portentous threats of human extinction, Humanity’s End sort of finds its feet towards its conclusion, puts aside its childish things and offers up a note of hope in the face of human tragedy.

Oh all right, Humanity’s End is a bit of cheap and worthless trash and yet it’s entertaining enough in its own dumb way, with an appealing sort of rough shambolic charm and if nothing else you’ll have fun spotting all those Red Dwarf/Babylon 5 homages as you cringe at the tacky special effects and the eye-poppingly earnest acting. This is almost the dictionary definition of ‘guilty pleasure’ and boy, do I feel guilty.

Extras: None

Review: Cassadaga (18) / Director: Anthony Diblasi / Screenplay: Bruce Wood, Scott Poiley / Starring: Kelen Coleman, Kevin Alejandro, J Larose, Louise Fletcher, Rus Blackwell / Release Date: Out Now

This latest release from the generally-reliable After Dark horror label is, if you’ll pardon the pun considering the subject matter (and especially the opening sequences which will have you squirming in your seat), a cut way above the standard of the tide of cheap and cheerless straight-to-DVD genre titles which come Starburst’s way. Anthony Diblasi’s Cassadaga, an intense and powerful combination of Italian giallo and Southern Gothic horror, is actually slick and accomplished enough to deserve a cinematic release.

Way more subtle and affecting than tiresome slashers like Saw and Hostel, Cassadaga deftly dances with familiar ghostly supernatural tropes before changing partners in mid-stream and drifting in the direction of torture porn with its depictions of mutilation and graphic body horror. But there’s more to Cassadaga than a few cheap thrills and a bit of gratuitous gore; this is a horror film with a touch  of style and intelligence as well as some sturdy performances and striking, evocative cinematography.

At first we seem to be on recognisable territory. Following the death of her younger sister in a traffic accident, deaf art student/teacher Lily More (Kelen Coleman) seeks solace at the spiritualist community of Cassadaga (which really exists) in Florida. She quickly takes up with her star pupil’s single father Mike (Alejandro, True Blood’s Jesus) and a visit to a local spiritualist brings her into contact with an angry, restless spirit which sets out to torment her day and night, leading her and those around her to question her sanity. It soon appears that the vengeful spirit is directing her towards a series of unsolved disappearances which are inevitably connected to the masked figure merrily mutilating young women in a basement and replacing their limbs with doll parts so he can turn them into marionettes. This is Geppetto, the local insane serial killer…

There’s plenty of good, meaty stuff here but the film’s problem is that there’s so much going on that some elements of the plot are a bit undercooked and characters come and go from the story without much explanation. Coleman is excellent as the strong-willed, determined Lily but her new boyfriend Mike, who looks as if he’s going to be integral to the resolution of the sometimes-meandering storyline, disappears when his ex-wife gets wind of his new relationship and he never shows his face again. Geppetto too, remains a bit of a mystery. He’s a ruthless and merciless killer but he’s a bit on the bland side because the film doesn’t tell us what motivates him, why he does the things he does; as a consequence he’s just depicted as a mad butcher who, in the last reel, becomes simply another lumbering murderer chasing a pretty screaming girl. Also a bit of a puzzler is why Lily is depicted as deaf; it doesn’t actually add anything to the story, other than making her appear a bit more vulnerable than the ballsy girls who usually strut through horror films waiting to get their throats slit and much of the time her deafness is barely referenced and it’s easy to forget, such is the confidence of Coleman’s performance, that the character’s deaf at all.

Cassadaga, however, is a richly-atmospheric piece which, refreshingly, takes its time and is happy to let its characters develop at their own pace which makes them somewhat more relatable than the usual horror cannon fodder. Diblasi’s direction is bold and confident and the film only really falters because of the scope of its ambition, its desire to depict believable people whilst combining the derivative ‘ghostly figure’ horror clichés with more graphic mutilation horror without really ever allowing either element the room to breathe. The film remains a quiet triumph though and, for once, is a bit of a gem amidst the flotsam and jetsam of straight-to-DVD horror titles. It’s well worth tracking down.

Special Features: None

 

DVD Review: Captain America (PG) / Director: Albert Pyun / Screenplay: Stephen Tolkin / Starring: Matt Salinger, Ronny Cox, Ned Beatty / Release Date: Out Now

Long before the birth of Marvel studios and Joe Johnston’s expertly crafted take on the star-spangled avenger, there was this cinematic oddity. Released in 1992 (although it was finished some two years previously), Captain America provided Cap’s first screen outing for 13 years (following the ill-fated TV attempts which were less Captain America and more Evel Knievel). No doubt spurred on by the reignition of the big-screen comic book genre thanks to Tim Burton’s Batman, Cyborg director Albert Pyun stepped up to the plate and got ready to hit Marvel’s heroes into the stratosphere. Unfortunately for all involved, the home team appeared to have forgotten to bring their ‘A game’ (or, indeed, anything which even gave them a fighting chance).

Our story begins in WWII Italy (yes, that’s Italy) where a young boy is orphaned thanks to some helpful government soldiers, before being taken to a secret facility and introduced to the Super Soldier program. Flashing forward seven years later, we meet Steve Rodgers (Matt Salinger), a strapping 6’ 4” chisel-jawed Californian who is hopelessly debilitated by a bit of a limp. Seeing their chance (and with the nice Italian Super Soldier doctor on board), the American government recruit Steve in the hope of turning him into… well, a strapping 6’ 4” chisel-jawed Californian without a limp. The high tech experiment (which essentially involves shining a light on the subject) goes well and before you know it, Steve has become Captain America.

Steve’s first mission is a trip behind enemy lines to stop the maniacal Red Skull (Scott Paulin) from launching a big missile at the White House. Dressed in bright blue latex, Cap goes in, launching his mighty shield at all who get in his way and fighting his way to the prize. But all doesn’t go well and Steve is strapped to the missile and sent packing to Washington. Managing to divert the rocket at the last minute (as a slack-jawed kid looks on), Cap winds up crashing into the Arctic wastes.

46 years later, explorers unearth the body and what could have been a passable comic book romp suddenly turns into an almost Capless TV movie as Steve comes to terms with losing his past, falls for his ex girlfriend’s daughter (bleugh) and embarks on a nice little weekend break to Italy, presumably because that’s where the funding was.

The problems with this half-arsed superhero flick are myriad. Eagle-eyed readers will have already spat out their coffee at the sight of words like ‘Italy’ and ‘California’, and issues such as having a giant of a man playing pre-Cap Steve Rodgers are only highlighted by the phenomenal work accomplished in last year’s film. But the biggest issue of all is the plot. What there is of it is so unambitious that it defies belief. While last year’s flick had Cap stopping the world from falling under the tyrannical rule of the Red Skull, this one features a Skull whose biggest sin is profiteering from anti-environmental products.

As for Cap himself, while Salinger does a decent job of playing a dough-eyed Rodgers, his only resemblance to Captain America is a physical one, and even that’s a stretch given his shiny tricolour suit and mask that looks like a shoddy cosplay knockoff.

There are no extras onboard this release (which is a shame given its tumultuous history) and the quality isn’t much better than the VHS it was most probably lifted from. None of this helps what is essentially nothing more than an interesting (and hugely flawed) piece of Marvel’s cinematic history.

DVD Review: The Howling Reborn (15) / Director: Joe Nimziki / Screenplay: Joe Nimziki / Starring: Landon Liboiron, Lindsey Shaw, Ivana Milicevic / Release Date: Out Now

Oh dear. If the previous sequels were not bad enough, The Howling has to put up with this (eighth!) direct to DVD flick.

Will Kidman (Landon Liboiron) is just about to graduate, having spent the last 18 years pretty much as a loner, with only a geeky horror film making friend Sachin (Jesse Rath) for company, and a slutty girl who hangs out with the bad boys, Eliana (Lindsay Shaw) for his fantasies. He draws her obsessively from afar.

His mother was killed before he was born, (in the opening sequence) and he was cut from her womb and left, while her body was never found. Quite amazing that he got to be 18 and have his oddly named friends at all then, eh?

Graduation is the least of his worries though as he is soon drawing the attention of the “pack” of bad boys, who seem to have taken a shine to him. Suddenly his life is changed, he no longer needs his glasses to see properly and the girl of his dreams is paying attention to him, especially after he kicks his ass in the bathroom. Although the bully then gets up and pulls a gun and attempts to chase Will down in a completely deserted school corridor. (I think the gun was only added for a convenient reason – watch and you will see)

Things get worse, however when his mother (Ivana Milicevic) turns up on the scene with the “pack” in tow, and reveals to Will his true destiny as a lycanthrope.

The Howling Reborn comes across like a cross between Twilight and Harry Potter, with none of the charm of either. It doesn’t even have the likeable characters of MTV’s Teen Wolf reboot, which while not being perfect, was at least watchable and didn’t skimp on the gore.

The effects, when they finally come are OK in that you don’t really get much of a chance to see the CGI flaws because they are shot so darkly and quick. It’s obvious the makers have gone for the PG-13 (although it has been given a 15 in the UK) audience, rather than the more credible adult route of Ginger Snaps for example.

At the end of the day, it makes you want to go back and re-appraise Howling II as a classic (at least that had Christopher Lee and Sybil Danning pulling her top off again and again over the end credits). This is more like The Howling Stillborn.

DVD Review: Dark Relic (15) / Director: Lorenzo Sena / Screenplay: Andy Briggs / Starring: James Frain, Clemency Burton-Hill, Tom Basden / Release Date: Out Now

Made for the SyFy channel back in 2010, Dark Relic seems to be a film that was made to cash in on the success, or lack thereof of Season of the Witch which stank up cinemas early last year. Funnily enough despite having probably not even the catering budget of that film, this is actually better.

We start in the crusades as Jerusalem has just been conquered and a group of knights, led by Sir Gregory (James Frain) discover a chunk of the cross that Jesus was crucified on and decide to take it back to Rome. After a shipwreck and one of their crew disembowelled in the woods, the group of men start to believe that the relic they carry might be cursed. Birds falling from the sky, swarms of locusts and demonically possessed monks all add to the feeling that something is amiss.

Dark Relic’s fatal flaw is that it lacks scope and sweep. I realise its low budget but at the start a few inserts of sweeping landscapes would have made all the difference. The knights walk along against blatantly false backgrounds and I half expected Terry Gilliam to show up with a couple of coconut shells. There is then a gratuitous flashback to a battle scene which unwisely decides to imitate Zack Snyder’s 300 and the result is just sad. Once the knights get to snowy, bleak Europe things improve somewhat with actual physical locations. From there on in Dark Relic is pure entertainment with all manner of badly rendered nastiness hurled at our heroes.

The effects may not be very convincing but Dark Relic moves like lightning and is never less than entertaining. In fact it’s so fast moving that it’s difficult to keep up with exactly what is going on. The characters and plot are never given time to breathe which is a shame considering that the acting from James Frain on down is actually pretty decent and nearly everyone is equipped with a convincing accent. Clearly this was made for TV with a running time of just over one hour so that the US SyFy channel could pad it out with 40 minutes of commercials. They seem to have some great bad ideas over there (Sharktopus!) but rarely seem to take them seriously, leading to all their output apart from the on-going series’ feeling really rushed.

Dark Relic isn’t a ground breaking piece of straight to DVD entertainment, but it has a certain entertainment value without ever being wholly satisfying. For a similar yet more thorough experience watch Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven and follow it up with Lamberto Bava’s Demons.

Special Features: TBC

Blu-ray Review: The Howling Reborn (15) / Director: Joe Nimziki / Screenplay: Joe Nimziki / Starring: Landon Liboiron, Lindsey Shaw, Ivana Milicevic / Release Date: Out Now

It might just be me but I seem to remember the Howling franchise being a pretty big deal in video shops during the 80s. You might think that Joe Dante’s original film (which is still nasty and cool) would merit something of a fanfare for its inevitable reboot or remake. Seems it was not to be, as The Howling Reborn is every inch a low budget attempt to cash in on the current popularity of confused werewolf teenagers.

We begin with a pregnant woman attacked and seemingly killed by a werewolf but the baby survives. Seventeen years later and the baby has grown up into wet dreaming artistic wimp Will (Landon Liboiron) about to graduate with an unrequited crush on rebel chick Eliana (Lindsey Shaw). Strange new kids have joined the school and their eyebrows join in the middle. Will is attacked at a club one night and starts to experience change, he discovers a dark secret related to his parentage which threatens a safe graduation for everyone.

The Howling Reborn is an incoherent mess of a film that never comes to terms with what it wants to be. The soundtrack and angsty scenes are pure Twilight rip off, the werewolf effects and gore are done on such a low budget that it resembles a spoof and the acting is on another level entirely. To be fair, it seems as though director Joe Nimziki does have a bit of talent. The opening scenes are quite well done and he gets some good performances from his young cast, he also has a talent for matching the visuals with the angsty soundtrack. When your producer is also credited as the co-writer for your film, you can begin to see the problems here.

Every time the film threatens to get good with its werewolf carnage we instead cut away to a scene of Will and Eliana about to engage in animalistic love making only for him to spout something like “I Can’t…Leave Me Alone!!!”. The film constantly threatens to go full exploitation but then bottles it for the easy reference to the Twilight crowd. As a result the film just doesn’t work at all, the werewolf effects are of the men in suit variety and they choose to film the fights shaky-cam style to mask this problem. This just adds to the overall feeling of puzzlement as bizarrely the students attend a graduation ceremony at night during a full moon.

I am sure that The Howling films were not classics the first time around (in fact from what I hear, not even close) but surely the franchise deserves better than this limp effort.

Special Features: Making of, Storyboards.

Review: The Secret World of Alex Mack (15) / Directed by: Various / Written by: Tommy Lynch, Ken Lipman / Starring: Laris Oleynik, Meredith Bishop, Darris Love, Dorian Lapinto, Michael Blakley, Benjamin Kimball Smith, Natanya Ross, Jessica Alba / Release Date: Out Now

The first series of Alex Mack (Larisa Oleynik) follows the formula of many high school shows focusing on issues such as popularity, the opposite sex and coming of age but add in the powers that are bestowed upon Alex by an accidental chemical spillage and the scope for a little more fun than usual makes up an amusing portrayal of awkward adolescence.

Alex is an average student who hangs out with her laidback, saxophone playing best friend Ray and is constantly overshadowed by her scientific whizz of a sister, Annie. On the way home from her first day at junior high school Alex gets covered by a chemical called GC-161 that changes her molecular structure so she can transform into liquid, control electricity and move objects with her mind. Ray and Annie are the only two people who know about Alex’s powers as she must keep it a secret from the malevolent chemical plant that runs the town.

Each episode consists of the plant’s security hatching a plan to find the contaminated teen or Alex getting into a difficult situation that forces her to use her powers. The simple premise works well with the twenty something minute running time; and it is an entertaining kids show that attempts to deliver some important messages about growing up through a fun medium. Adult viewers in want of a nostalgic 90s television trip will probably be bored by the obvious lessons each episode is doling out. It does work on the level of young kids entertainment, though with a 15 certificate given by the BBFC due to a scene where Alex hides in a tumble drier, may put parents off purchasing the DVD. The question of whether a younger audience will relate to the backward cap, oversized plaid shirt wearing 90s charm of Alex Mack is difficult to determine. The growing pains of youth are still the same, but the issues are handled without any real depth. Instead of teen angst the makers of the show have opted for a lighter tone.

The concept of a teenage girl with super powers struggling through high school dealing with the stereotypical bully (played by Jessica Alba… who mysteriously disappears after a few episodes) and daydreaming up ways to get back at her makes for comic viewing. The daydream sequences throughout are the highlight of the show as they reach to the darker humour of the teen psyche. Alex’s powers and the way she uses them are delightfully creative the first few times but watching a pile of goo slide under a door for the tenth time does deliver repetitive viewing.

Alex Mack is suitable viewing for younger kids but it lacks the darkness or the cult edge needed to spark nostalgia in adults.

Review: War of the Worlds – Season One (15) / Directed by: Various / Written by: Various / Starring: Jared Martin, Philip Akin, Lynda Mason Green, Richard Chaves, Rachel Blanchard, Denis Forest, Adrian Paul, Catherine Disher / Release Date: April 30th

The DVD release of War of the Worlds was the first of two series broadcast in the late 1980s. It acts as a follow up to the 1953 George Pal film and is based on the premise that the Martians were not quite destroyed by human bacteria but were placed in a state of hibernation which the US Government used to confine the Martians in a military base.

Like all good invasions, whether it is alien or zombie, a terrorist group successfully infiltrates the military base and unknowingly releases the Martians who kills the terrorist group and use their bodies as cadavers. However, this invasion doesn’t go unnoticed – Dr. Harrison Blackwood (Jared Martin), an astrophysicist, and computer genius Norton (Philip Akin) discover radio-activity on Earth, which is typically found in space in their field of work. With newly recruited microbiologist Suzanne (Lynda Mason Green), they set out to trace the original source of the signal and stumble onto a similar investigation being covered by Lt Col. Paul Ironhorse (Richard Chavez). A chance encounter with the Martians seals the alliance into an alien investigation team backed by the US Government.

I honestly thought that this series would be dire; however, there are some wonderful aspects to it. The series goes beyond being just a follow-up to the 1953 film in more ways than one. The episode Eye For An Eye is set in Grover’s Mill; the famous alien landing-spot for Orson Welles’ infamous 1938 radio drama. In the episode, a real invasion took place in 1938 and was defeated by a group of men who help the team to take down an invasion in Grover’s Mill for a second time. Meanwhile, in A Multitude of Idols, Blackwood seeks the help of Sylvia Van Buren (a character from the original 1953 film, played by the original actress Ann Robinson). Meanwhile, the series’ use of the Cold War (which was still happening at the time) dates the series in a good way. The episode Epiphany (which guests The Avengers actor Patrick Macnee) deals with the Martians looking to exploit the hatred and tensions between humans (which were ripe during the Cold War) in order to invade. This resonates with HG Wells’ original novel and how he integrated the hot topics of the Victorian Era (largely colonialism) into this work.

However, War of the Worlds attempts to evolve the story and fails massively. In the series, it turns out that the “Martians” are actually the Mor-Taxans from the another planet light years away; Doctor Who has made this mistake before of taking a monster which has passed into folklore and making it into something else, it just spoils the enjoyment of the familiar and is really unnecessary. Also, when their cadavers begin to rot as a result of radiation, they inhabit shapeless suits which look like discarded Doctor Who monsters. Meanwhile, through no fault of its own (it was made in the 80s), the random interjections of gore, such as aliens bursting out of cadaver’s stomach (hmm… has that not been done before?) and bodies melting, were special effects typical of the 80s but they get a tad boring and predictable after you’ve gone through the first six episodes.

War of the Worlds has something special to it, which I think is what granted it a second series in its original run; it attempts to streamline the ideas across all adaptations of the original into one story which (for its time) works really well against a Cold War backdrop. However, the gory effects are repetitive and the bastardisation of some of the original material spoils the series after a while. In addition, the only special features with this DVD are the episode synopses, which I still don’t quite understand the use of.

Special Features: Episode Synopses

Review: Carnival of Fear / Director: Jay Woelfel / Screenplay: Jay Woelfel / Starring: Aimee Brooks, Damian Maffei, Joe Unger / Release Date: Out Now

Carnivals have provided the setting for some great horror films: Freaks (1932), Carnival of Souls (1962) and The Funhouse (1981) to name but a few. Alas, Carnival of Fear (AKA Closed for the Season) is not one of them.

Set in the (real life) abandoned Chippewa Lake Amusement Park in Ohio, Carnival of Fear tells the story of Kristy (Aimee Brooks), a lost tourist who wakes up in the dilapidated carnival with no memory of how she got there. Searching for a way out, she encounters James (Damian Maffei), whose parents are the caretakers of the park. Together they try to escape the mysterious Carney (Joe Unger) who appears to have the power to raise the phantoms of the carnival’s past to stalk and terrorise them. Trapped in a netherworld between the past and present, Kristy and James realise they have no choice except to relive the legends of the carnival and to ride the rides one last time. But is the Carney guiding them towards salvation or eternal damnation?

Despite a promising scenario, Carnival of Fear quickly descends into a morass of inept storytelling, clumsy direction and even weaker CGI. In the opening scene a young boy rides a rollercoaster for what turns out to be the last time. He is tossed out by a strange drifter who appears as if by magic, and tumbles to the ground to be impaled on a tree stump through his middle. Despite this he seems unhurt. “That’s the damnedest thing I ever saw”, marvels the Carney. Confused? You will be.

Carnival of Fear continues in this vein throughout, attempting to weave a line between the real and the imagined, between hallucination and apparition, past and present, but fails badly: it is unconvincing and – at times – downright confusing.

Aimee Brooks and Damian Maffei are game as the befuddled tourists attempting (like the viewer) to distinguish reality and fantasy, but the lame script gives them little to work with. Joe Unger, a familiar face from TV and film (Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3, 1990) brings some weight to the Carney role, although fails to deliver the kind of chills that, say, Tim Curry provided as Pennywise the Clown in IT (1991).

With minimal characterisation, little suspense and a lot of repetition, Carnival of Fear runs out of steam by the half-way mark.  Director Jay Woelfel might at least have managed to create some atmosphere from the real-life abandoned amusement park in which Carnival of Fear is set – but no. Although Woelfel is a veteran of straight-to-video horror movies (Like Evil, 2009, Trancers 6, 2002) Carnival of Fear rarely rises above the level of a student short.

This ride is not worth the price of admission. Avoid.