Some locations just lend themselves to horror. Asylums, the woods, anal cavities (seriously, if you haven’t yet watched 2019’s Butt Boy, add it to your list). Fans of the genre know that one other sure-fire locale for all things weird, creepy, and terrifying is the traveling carnival. From 1972’s Vampire Circus to 1981’s The Funhouse, from 1983’s Something Wicked This Way Comes to 1988’s Killer Klowns from Outer Space, strange events unfold at carnivals populated by even stranger workers.
Vampire Carnival is the latest entry into this traveling subgenre, but it’s worth noting right up front that this isn’t quite the horror film you’re expecting (or that’s being advertised).
Gemma (Nell Verlaque) was just eighteen when she found her father dead from a self-inflicted gunshot. It’s a few years later, and while her mother hides her grief in extra work shifts and long naps, Gemma’s feelings of loss leave her with nightmares and days shrouded in numbness and despair. In desperate need of a pick me up, she joins her friends, Ryan (Corrado Martini) and Olivia (Paulina Chavez), for a night at a new carnival that’s recently popped up in town.
The evening fun takes a turn as Eric (Kieron Moore), a young man with a violent past, resurfaces with vague threats, but the bigger issue might just be the carnival employees. Surprise! Toussaint (Jason Isaacs), a long-haired, smooth-talking hypnotist, is the patriarch of the carnival family, and they’re all just a little bit… off. They’re also sexy as hell, though, and soon Gemma and her friends are seduced by carnies, welcomed into a magical sex party, and promised a night they’ll never forget. Granted, it’s because they’ll never remember it, but still.
Vampire Carnival is an odd movie, and it’s not entirely clear that the filmmakers – directors Justin Powell and David Charbonier, writers Jason Filardi and Peter Filardi – are all on the same page here, as the end result feels like a real mixed bag. Part of it wants to be an exploration of grief (it’s a horror film made in the 2020s, after all), part of it feels like a belated riff on Twilight complete with an Edward Cullen reference, and then the third act arrives and someone seemingly reminds them this is supposed to be a horror movie. Also, at no point does anyone utter the word “vampire.”
The pieces are there, and some of them land really well, but the script feels like it’s alternately doing both too much and too little. Excess time is spent on some elements, including an unnecessarily messy subplot and brief flashbacks to scenes we’ve already seen in the film itself, while more time is needed on both Gemma’s journey and that of the carnival folks.
The film definitely looks good, though, some CG blood aside, as the directors and cinematographer Jose Luis Bernal shoot some frequently attractive visuals. The carnival exteriors are vibrant, busy, and capture the feel of walking through the crowd from one sticky ride or attraction to the next. The opening credits do just that with an extended tracking shot (via a handful of not-so-hidden edits) throughout the carnival as we follow one character, then another, and so on. Bright lights, constant motion, and the chattering, screaming crowd complete the illusion as we move past ticketed attractions and talented acrobats.
The aforementioned sex party, meanwhile, is a swirling feast of flesh and implied naughtiness. An effort is made to make nearly every coupling a throuple, sexual fluidity is on tap right next to the red stuff, and it’s a good time for all. The guys are all beefcakes, the gals are occasionally topless, and these toothy carnies are more respectful of the rules of consent than frat boys as evidenced by one’s comment that “no means no” when it comes to bloodsucking. Of course, then Ryan’s homemade “molly” ruins everyone’s night, and that’s why we all hate Ryan.
“Grief is a strange architect,” says Sebastian (Alvise Rigo), the absolutely ripped carnie who woos Gemma into opening his magic door. “It builds walls where doors used to be.” The line is just clever enough, and Rigo, an Italian model and bodybuilder who recently turned to acting, gives it an oddly affecting, Schwarzenegger-like delivery, belying a weirdly compelling sadness we never get the chance to explore. Isaacs‘ dialogue isn’t quite as poetic, but he’s having a very good time ramping up the playful mysticism, speaking in Latin, and when needed, delivering a beatdown.
But where’s the horror, I can hear you asking, and it’s a fair question. It’s nearly an hour into the film’s 98-minute running time that the first hint of something vampiric arises, and the first kill kicks off the third act shortly thereafter. No spoilers as to what exactly unfolds, but in addition to their somewhat unique double fangs – they have two upper fangs per side – the vamp’s bloodletting grows from spurting arteries to a decapitation. I would have loved more, I always do, but it’s enough for what ultimately amounts to college-level YA horror with a light R-rating.
That’s probably an incredibly confusing way to describe Vampire Carnival, but it is what it is. A mild jumble of ideas, some good and some less so, all aimed at Twilight fans who’ve aged a few years but still yearn for the forbidden sauce of consensual human/vamp diddling, thrown together with visual care en route to an ending that delivers both closure and a doorway towards further supernatural adventures of the heart. It’s horror-lite, and that’s okay.
Most of you will probably dislike the film, and I get it, but there’s something about its messy truths that speaks to me and leaves me just intrigued enough. Maybe I’m a hopeless romantic. Maybe the abundant beefcake has me fondly remembering the time I subjected myself to a pair of David DeCoteau “horror” films for a Bigfoot list I was writing. Or maybe it’s just my curiosity about the “Cast Mistress” credit in the end credits. Who’s to say, really.
Vampire Carnival releases in theaters today, October 7.
