Carnage (Andy Milligan, 1984)

No one made movies like Andy Milligan, and despite his reputation as a maker of so-bad-they're-good inept schlock, I think he was some kind of mad almost-genius. His choices are deliberate, not accidental, and his off-kilter approach to framing, blocking, sound, music, storytelling, acting, humor, violence, and the blending of opposing elements makes for an indelibly personal, unique body of work.

I've tried to describe Milligan's style in previous films of his I've reviewed on this site (Blood, The Body Beneath, his Sweeney Todd adaptation Bloodthirsty Butchers), and the closest comparison I can make is a strange blend of the funnier, bitchier, and more personality- and character-based of Andy Warhol's films (as opposed to more avant-garde work like Empire or Blow Job) and the films of Warhol's peers and collaborators Paul Morrissey and Jed Johnson, Desperate Living-era John Waters, '30s and '40s classic Hollywood and B-movie horror, '60s and '70s New York underground films, TV sitcoms, and gay camp, with a healthy dollop of misanthropic rage and a contradictory worldview that embraced both a reactionary pining for Old World traditions and values and a viciously funny critique of straight, mainstream society. 

An Army brat who frequently moved across the country as a child, Milligan is a complex stew, and by many accounts, a rage-filled man who was furious at being gay, furious at his abusive mother, mad at the world, and abusive and ill-tempered on his film sets. He hated anyone who smoked, drank, or used drugs (even though many of his characters do all these things), and he never learned to drive. His longtime chauffeur, Dennis Malvasi (who has a small part in Carnage and also acted in Milligan's theater troupe), an ex-con, ex-Marine, and demolitions expert, was arrested in 1987 for the bombing of several New York abortion clinics throughout the 1980s. He was just one of the many bizarre people in Milligan's orbit. In addition to making several strange horror films in Staten Island, London, and L.A., Milligan also directed gay sexploitation movies and an unaired sitcom called The Adventures of Red Rooster, acted in, directed, and made costumes for Off-Broadway theater, worked as a dressmaker, and owned and operated a seedy hotel. He died of AIDS in 1991 and is buried in an unmarked grave in Los Angeles.

Carnage is Milligan's haunted house movie, and, in my unpopular opinion, it makes The Amityville Horror look like a bag of wet French fries. Milligan really sticks it to straight, married couples here, and he also creates some of his creepiest images and funniest lines of dialogue. I particularly enjoyed almost every line uttered by Che Moody playing a character called "Mother-in-law." When her daughter tells her she's pregnant, Che says, "I'm not old enough to be a mother, and now I'm going to be a grandmother? What will I tell my boyfriends?" There is no narrative reason for this character to be in the movie, and she has the best lines. That is the kind of thing I respect, and live for. 

Carnage begins with the murder/suicide of a young couple in the Staten Island house you will recognize if you've seen Milligan's New York movies (it was his home). Shortly afterward, we are introduced to the next married couple to buy the house, Carol (Leslie Den Dooven, oddly and wonderfully listed in the credits as Leslie Den Den Dooven) and Johnathan (Michael Chiodo). Within minutes of moving into the house, Carol and Johnathan are given the business by ghosts. Records start playing by themselves, cups of tea are moved (more people make tea in this movie than in any five tea commercials combined), garden shears appear and disappear, phones hang up by themselves, windows open and close. The couple mostly gets the poltergeist treatment, but when anyone else comes over, the ghosts put the supernatural smack down.

The first person to get fucked up by the ghosts is the newly hired housekeeper Martha (Judith Mayes). The ghost of the dead woman from the murder/suicide pact appears in the basement minutes into Martha's very first shift and tells the woman to get out of the house. Weirdly, the ghost also refuses to let Martha leave the basement and turns her into a palpitating mess. Soon, a pair of unlucky burglars get some extreme ghost justice, and then it's on to the main event, Carol and Johnathan's housewarming party.

This housewarming party is a little odd. Two other couples who are friends of Carol and Johnathan arrive, and everyone immediately retires to their rooms and puts on bathrobes. One guy even tries to take a bath but runs into some ghost trouble. He takes a second bath hours later. What is going on with this party? When my friends who live in the same city as me come over for a party (pre-Covid), they do not put on robes and/or hop in my shower. Johnathan even says, "OK, everybody. Put your clothes on and let's drink a toast." It was daylight when they arrived at the party. Why are they all in robes? I'm not angry about this. In fact, I love it. More movies should make less sense more often. It really gives things a little flavor. More characters, delights, and ghost murders await, in grand Milligan style, and I was greatly entertained by almost all of it. 

Read the majority of Milligan reviews online, and you'll probably read someone saying what a pile of trash each movie is. Bunk. All this reveals is a world full of people with no imagination, joy, or soul. (Damn, I'm starting to sound as misanthropic as Milligan.) There are as many correctly incorrect ways to make a movie as there are people on earth. Don't let corporations colonize your mind and bully your imagination. Carnage is a blast. Milligan may have been a bitter, unpleasant man, but he made some weird fucking movies, and I salute him for it.