Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2016
Images from the Internet
CarousHELL
Written and directed by Steve Rudzinski
Silver Spotlight
70 minutes / 2016
The film can be pre-ordered HERE.
Steve Rudzinski is certainly not the
most prolific of directors, but when he puts out a film, be it more serious (though still having some humor; e.g., Everyone Must Die!, from 2012, reviewed
HERE) or even more hysterically absurd (e.g., Captain Z and the Terror of Leviathan,
2014, reviewed HERE), the viewer is in for a quality show. Here is the thing about absurdist humor:
it can be really, incredibly stupid (e.g., anything by Seth Rogan), or it can
be way smarter than it appears to be (e.g., anything my Monty Python),
sometimes by mocking the genre’s own familiar tropes. Fortunately, Rudzinski’s
work falls on the side to the latter.
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| Se Marie |
Here is the basic premise: a carousel’s
wooden unicorn, Duke, becomes sentient (or “wakes up” as they call it here) after
an obnoxious kid, Larry (Teague Shaw) wipes some snot on its snout and kicks it
a few times. Of course, that means the kid must die. His insufferable “#hotbitch” (her words) sister, Laurie (Sé
Marie) drags him to a party at her friend’s house, where all comers, likeable
or not, are fodder for the unicorn from (possibly literally) hell.
The film is so goofy, and yet remains
consistently hysterical. I’m not talking about a couple of scenes here and
there, I mean straight through. But pay attention for all the references. While
you really wanna punch out this little bratty kid and his big even brattier (is
that even a word?!) sister, but the
people at the party are as much fun to watch as the arcing story. One of the
running gags is a variation of the whole “Bronie” movement (male fans of My Little Pony,
as in Bro/pony), focused around…well, you should have figured that out by now.
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| Duke |
We, the audience, hear Duke’s both
inner (thought) and outer (oral) “voice,” and his comments are as snide and pun
filled as a certain red and green sweater-wearing dream killer. Other people
can hear it, too, as the trailer below shows. Yeah, there’s a lot of profanity,
and there is more than a few “bitch” references, but Steve Rimpici does a fun
job of it, as he’s done in other voice roles. While there is little subtlety,
and certainly no pity towards Duke, there is absolutely many reasons to laugh
at both the wooden horse’s (I mean unicorn’s) words, and even – believe it or
not – actions: his “hiding” scenes towards the end had me rolling.
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| Steve Rudzinski |
As with many of Rudzinski’s films,
there are self-referential moments to his previous films, such as a bottle of Captain
Z’s Totally Accurate Pirate Wine, or the off-hand mention of his Web series, SuperTask Force One. Also, Rudzinski uses the film not just to get his ideas across, but also as an
acting vehicle for himself, not as the main character but a supportive-yet-pivotal
role. His style tends to learn towards the Edgar Kennedy school of
slow-burn-to-righteous-explosion. Rudzinski’s skill is pretty varied, as he’s
shown in previous films, but this method is among my favorites.
There is not much nudity in the film,
most of which is a response to one sleazy character’s (Chris Proud) cry of “show
me your [pick a word for female breasts] for a beaded necklace” at the party.
That being said, there is definitely one scene with the elfin cute pierced and tatted
Haley Madison that goes beyond what you may expect even from an indie…or
perhaps not, all things considered.
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| Haley Madison |
The gore, however, is another story.
Some of it is kinda (purposefully) cheesy, but man, there is a lot of it, and most of it look
incredible for its budget. Duke seems to have access to any one of a number of
deadly weapons, from throwing stars to machetes, which draws a very funny
throwaway panicked line from the Pizza Boy (Rudzinski). I actually had to pause
the film to laugh, as not to miss anything. Come to think of it, there was more
than once I stop to rewind just a bit to either see or hear a bit again because
it was (a) WTF, (b) so beautifully done, (c) to laugh, or (d) any combination. It
should also be noted that there is a very large body count, so those into this
kind of film should find that fun, as I did.
CarousHELL
doesn’t answer a lot of question, which I think is fine (such as how this magic
horse… I mean unicorn, came to be). This is the kind of film that you just say “fuck
it” and watch it for what it is, without any guilt. If you actually sat down to
mull over it, there could be a lot of
questions that need to be answered, but the genre overrides the need for queries.
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| Cowboy Cool, aka PJ Gaynard |
One of the more bizarre characters is
Cowboy Cool (PJ Gaynard), who not only swaggers in a John Wayne style, but
never removes his huge, mascot mask covered head. He seems to have the only gun
that can kill Duke (who is, I suppose, ironically and purposely branded after
Wayne’ nickname?). I think my fave characters are, however, the icky siblings
Pierre (Josh Miller) and Margot (Sarah Brunner), who have the worst French
accents possible (it sounds more German, actually). They are just so obnoxious, playing on the Francophone
stereotype.
Rudzinski is a bit of a meat and
taters kinda director. You’re not going to see many weird artistic flairs,
which personally I find can be really tiring, especially for this genre. He has
a message, and he gets to it. That’s a large part of the appeal. He takes the micro-budget
that he has and makes the most out of it. But at the same time, it doesn’t feel
claustrophobic in that it’s not all shot in one place, but rather in some nice
locations, including, yes, an amusement park (the same one from 2015’s Scream Park [Conneaut Lake Park, PA], in
which Rudzinski acts but not directs)? Oops, there goes those questions again… [The director responds: "It's not the same park. Conneaut was too far away and now multiple movies have shot there. So we went to an even smaller park in Southwest PA called Wildwood Highlands, which is more of a go-kart/putt-putt/arcade with a few rides. But it was Western themed so it worked beautifully.]
Rudzinski tends to make a film or two
every year for the past few years, but his quality has never dipped below
extreme fun. His characters tend to be not necessarily the same high school stereotypes
you usually find, and he goes through a lot of them. He also manages to find
actors who are well suited for their roles (for example, Marie just aces hers),
so I’ve seen most of the last batch, and have never been disappointed. That
says a lot, considering he works in the Pittsburgh area (I kid…). Seriously,
this comedy is worth a view on many levels for genre fans. Just don’t expect
anything super deep (or super shallow), and enjoy the references as they fly
by. Grab a bag of popcorn and have a blast.
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