Leonard Kirtman mostly directed porn, but he also made several horror films, including his directing debut,
Carnival of Blood, a classic piece of low-budget Coney Island derangement. Recommended for fans of Herschell Gordon Lewis, Andy Milligan, and early John Waters,
Carnival of Blood is a weird, weird time at the movies, and I salute it.
Kirtman takes what could be a standard slasher setup and turns it into something personal and strange, with a cast of mostly nonprofessionals (plus Burt Young) doing odd things at a bustling real location with background extras who are everyday people enjoying themselves at an amusement park (or "amusement area" as one of the characters repeatedly calls it).
The film begins with a bickering couple hanging out at Coney Island. The husband, Harry, just wants to get on the subway, go home, and sleep, but his wife, Claire, doesn't want to leave. She drags him to every ride and game, berating him all the while. They get their palms and cards read by a fortune teller with a Jesus fetish who sees something terrible in their immediate future and stops the reading. Meanwhile, a game operator named Tom who is a little too into the stuffed animal prizes and his disfigured, humpbacked assistant Gimpy (oh my god, yes, that is the character's name) (played by soon-to-be-famous character actor Burt Young, under the name John Harris) take a disliking to Claire when she and Harry stop by Tom's stand so Harry can throw darts at balloons and try to win a stuffed bear. Hey, guess what? People start dying at Coney Island. Are Tom and Gimpy to blame? You possibly bet your ass they are ... with a twist.
Tom lives on the top floor of a rental house with his stuffed animals. The tenant downstairs is Laura, an artist (her art is really, really bad and looks like an extremely stupid child created it) and art teacher engaged to district attorney Dan. Laura somehow can't detect the deranged creep vibes coming off Tom like cartoon stink lines, and she and Dan have a friendly repartee with the old so-and-so.
People keep dying and the fortune teller keeps seeing terrible things, but the amusement park keeps on keeping on. The rides stay open, even the one that was host to a decapitation.
The other major characters in
Carnival of Blood are a drunken sailor and his sexed-up, opportunistic date and an older woman with intense Divine energy, a pearl necklace, egg-shaped glasses, a serious 'tude, and a hankering for fried shrimp. I have no proof of this, but I believe Kirtman told the actor playing the drunken sailor to play the drunkest man he's ever seen multiplied by a hundredfold.
As you may have guessed, this movie is right up my alley. Kirtman has a great eye for strange people and strange moments, and he ignores all the competent professionalism that makes most normal movies so dull while capturing a fascinating historical slice of Coney Island in 1970. I also enjoyed the oddball soundtrack that alternates between private-press acoustic folk and electronic boops, beeps, and burbles.
Like Andy Milligan, Kirtman is an acquired taste that most people will probably not wish to acquire, but I love this kind of thing. The lack of it in our present moment is a real sickness.
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