Thursday, August 30, 2012

Carnival of Blood (1970)

Newly promoted Assistant District Attorney Dan takes his fiance Cathy to Coney Island on what is supposed to be a date, but turns out to be an investigation into a recent series of murders.  Cathy is not impressed, but who would be since trying to track down a serial killer isn't what a newly engaged woman wants to do on a date with the man of her dreams.

Cathy's neighbor Tom runs a booth at the park.  His assistant Gimpy, played but Burt Young of Rocky fame, covers the booth when Tom needs to run errands.

Suspicion for the killings is thrown onto several characters:  Dan is a little too intense; Gimpy is weird and antagonistic; and Tom can be super crazy scary when he's angry.

The victims are all females who are irritating, rude and nasty.  In fact there is only one woman in the whole film who is nice.  I'm not sure if that's the filmmakers view of women as a whole, or it was just a convenient way to make us okay with their deaths.  I usually don't even think about that, but this was so blatant that I did wonder if the writer hated women.

Overall the film has the feel of a Ray Dennis Steckler movie.  There's lots of padding and pointless conversations.  That being said, I find Stecklers movies to be oddly charming, although this film tends to border on tedious at times.  But I guess the same could be said of Steckler's films.

The thing I enjoyed the most was the footage of Coney Island from the late 1960s.

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