I love the original CARNIVAL OF SOULS, and it was one of those projects that when I heard they were remaking, I rolled my eyes and thought, "Now why go and do a silly thing like that?" Then when I heard Wes Craven was behind it (producer not as director) I got excited. Then I found out that it was starring a buncha unknowns (good, so did the original for me). Then I heard that the director of SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK...AGAIN was behind it, and call me silly, but I had some fun with that flick, so it peaked my interest. This flick is only a couple of weeks away from coming out in the USA, and I hadn't heard a word... till now...
You don't know me -- I'm a film fan from Germany who attended the world premiere of "(Wes Craven presents:) Carnival of Souls" at the Fantasy Film Fest in Munich.
I thought you might be interested in a review. I scanned the whole internet yesterday, and couldn''t find any, so I guess I'll be the first internet reviewer if you decide to publish it.
But there are two flaws: First, I'm not a native speaker (ie writer) of English, so there might be some grammar mistakes, unidiomatic expressions etc. Please feel free to correct or change whatever you think sounds clumsy or incorrect.
Second, I didn't see the original version of Carnival of Souls. So I can't tell how good or bad the film is in comparison to the 1962 classic.
Ok, here's the review:
Wes Craven presents: Carnival of Souls
Director: Adam Grossman, starts 21 August (according to imdb.com)
The film starts with the classic horror film tragedy: 11 year old Alex sees her mother being raped and killed by her mother's friend Louis, who works as a clown at the local fairground.
Cut -- 20 years later. Alex is still living in the same house. She and her sister work as bartenders in the bar which once belonged to her mother. Then the horror starts: Alex starts to see Louis, who died years ago, again. She has terrible nightmares and visions, and re-lives the past.
That's basically the whole story, and I wont't tell you the ending here.
The main problem of this film is that nothing really happens: After three or four nightmares and visions, it becomes just plain boring and repetitious. You know that the horror is just inside Alex' head, and that she can not be hurt -- in contrast to Nightmare on Elm Street which has a similiar theme. The nightmares all follow the same scheme and end with Alex waking up, feeling disoriented and frightened.
The shock effects itself are very poor and cheap -- imagine someone suddenly grabbing you from behind, pushing a halloween mask in your face and screaming at the same time. A terrible shock -- but very boring after two or three repeats. There is no development in this film. All there is are switches between dream and reality, which are not always convincing.
Gore fans can skip this film completely -- there is no blood, just plain old-fashioned hunt-the-girl-horror. The music is standard, suspense-generating, adding to the atmosphere, but nothing special.
The acting is very average, too. Shawnee Smiths plays Alex as a very bitchy character. It seems that she has only three emotional expressions: terror, anger and boredom. Although her looks are very pretty, you are never emotionally affected by what she is going through. So all you can do is sit it through and wait for the Finale, which gives the story a little twist, but can't really help the fact that the film is a complete failure.
So sum up, this is a very average B-picture with a lousy story, cheap thrills, and uninteresting actors. When I stepped outside of the theater, I didn't meet or hear anyone who liked this film. So cross the town to avoid it.
the Maestro..
