"The Haunted Carwash"
(with
apologies to Sifl & Olly )
Let's go in, a haunted carwash, yeah,
yeah, yeah!
Let's go in, a haunted carwash, yeah, yeah, yeah!
It’s an evil
clown’s delight, a carwash powered by fright!
Let's go in, a haunted carwash,
yeah, yeah, yeah!
Let's go in, a haunted carwash, yeah, yeah, yeah!
Sell
you hot wax and shampoo, scare the hell out of
you!
Well, ‘Wes Craven presents: Carnival of Souls’. An interesting title. Especially
considering that Craven neither wrote nor directed it, and that it has
absolutely nothing to do with the original ‘Carnival of Souls’. So why name it
that? It seems like a very misguided form of marketing. Oh yeah, on its surface,
it’s just a cheap attempt to cash in on the 'CoS' name, but is that name really
so all fired marketable? Most of the idiot high schoolers at the time of this
movie’s release (Now of course, idiot cubical workers. Ah, the blessed way in
which the dreams of youth wither and die!) had never heard of 'Carnival', and us horror
geeks have a psychotic aversion to remakes. Like Van Sant’s
embarrassing 'Psycho' re-shoot, I have yet to find one person who would consider
making this mess to be a good idea!
Let's keep this simple, none of us should spend to much time dwelling
on this thing. The writing is excrement. Not one believable, or even sympathetic
character. The dialog is garbage. The plot is just a sloppy mess of hash, not to
mention sleazy and disgusting. (If I see one more film that raises the specter
of child molestation in order to provide cheap tension, I swear I’ll track down
the fecker that wrote it and strangle him with his own entrails!) Any type of
plot structure exists only in order to hang pathetic set-piece freak out scenes
on. (A lot of the elements here are directly lifted from the brilliant ‘Jacob’s
Ladder‘, including, you guessed it, Alex’s encounter with the blurry-faced
demons of the haunted carwash! OHHHHHHHHH! Booga Booga BOOGA!)
Normally, clowns are scary.
The evil antagonist of this piece is a clown. Unfortunatley, he is played by
Larry Miller. Nothing against Miller whatsoever, I’m sure he’s an amiable lug,
but rather the point; he’s about as scary as a puppy wearing a valentine heart sweater. If you
don’t know who he is, Google
him right
now. I’m sure you’ve seen the balding, somewhat cherubic faced funnyman
somewhere else before. The point is, they might as well have hired Jerry
Seinfeld to play the psycho killer. That at least would have been entertaining.
So what’s up with state troopers nowadays? I get pulled over with a
dismembered hooker in my trunk, and it turns out the guy just wants to give me a
speeding ticket!
And what‘s the deal with chainsaws?
Well, maybe not.
Basically, if you have a fear of clowns, this is
the film to see. Craven, or whoever is responsible for this crap tries to tap
into this phobia, but bungles it so badly that not only is it impossible to be
scared while viewing this, you may never again see clowns as anything but trite
and boring . However, I’m not to be held responsible if you suddenly develop a
fear of overrated horror mavens who get way more credit than they deserve. (Ok
that was a cheap shot, and more than a little unfair, but after ‘Shocker’ and
‘Scream 2', Craven deserves it.)
So, should ‘Carnival’ fans see this to satisfy a morbid sense
of curiosity? Oh hell no! This movie is junk, and has nothing more in common
with the original than water and cars (Ohhh! I gave away the highly innovative ending,
aren’t I awful?! )
If this sounds fun to you, skip paying for the rental and
just go on a date with Ted Kennedy.