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The 8 Best Horror Movies Set in Theme Parks!

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Theme parks and carnivals are a fun, safe way to get your adrenaline pumping, but there’s also something creepy about them, too, making for a great setting for a horror movie. Never mind the possibility of ride malfunctions, or the huge crowds to contend with. Between the park theming and the creepy carnies, a carnival or amusement park also provides a perfect cover for murder. Especially if the theming is horror. And despite how fun this setting is in horror, it’s also one of the most underutilized.

Rooster Teeth and Fathom Events are bringing the premiere of Blood Fest to select theaters for a special one-night event on August 14, which will also include exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the film. Written and directed by Owen Egerton, Blood Fest sees fans gathering at a horror festival to celebrate their beloved genre, only to find that the director of the event might have a much more sinister, bloodthirsty agenda. As the attendees get picked off, three teenage horror fans (Robbie Kay, Seychelle Gabriel, and Jacob Batalon) rely on their genre knowledge and band together to battle psychos and monsters to survive. In anticipation of Blood Fest, we look back at the best theme part set horror.


Final Destination 3

When you think of amusement park set horror, this one is likely to pop into mind immediately. Each film in the Final Destination series opens with an intricate catastrophe that sets off a chain of events that causes Death to come back around to collect those that escaped his clutches. For Wendy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a premonition of a terrifying derailment of the Devil’s Flight roller coaster during a senior trip to an amusement park means she and a select few escapes the gruesome death that was in store. It’s one of the more memorable sequences of the series.


Scooby-Doo

If you frequently found yourself annoyed with the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon because it featured very little monsters and much more bitter janitors in masks, then this family-friendly comedy might be more your speed. At the very least it will make you wish the amusement park island resort Spooky Island was an actual place you could visit. In this live-action adaptation, the disbanded Mystery, Inc. team are unwittingly reunited to solve the mystery of strange happenings on Spooky Island. Ghosts, voodoo, and real demons abound, the gang has a lot of actual monsters to battle this time.


Zombieland

In this zombie comedy, the world is overrun with zombies, but all Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) wants is to find a Twinkie. All sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) want is a trip to theme park Pacific Playland. All three finally get what they want in the film’s grand finale, only it’s not quite what they had in mind. Riding the rides that once brought the sisters fond memories becomes a terrifying battle for their lives as it’s quickly invaded by clowns, carnies, and attendees, all of whom have long become the flesh-eating dead.


Something Wicked This Way Comes

Despite being a Disney film, this adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s novel is sinister. It features a twisted carnival, Mr. Dark’s Pandemonium Carnival, that passes through a small town in Illinois with the intent to claim innocent souls. The showman, Mr. Dark (Jonathan Pryce), is scary, and so is his warped merry-go-round that can age someone forward or backward depending on which direction you ride it. Though this might feature a couple of young boys as the heroes standing between Mr. Dark and the town, it’s scary no matter what age.


Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood

A definitive cult film, this low budget carnival set horror film from 1973 follows a family who gets a job undercover at a sleazy old carnival. They’re searching for their missing son, who disappeared after visiting the carnival. It doesn’t take long for the family to discover that the eccentric owner, Mr. Blood, is a vampire who rules over a horde of subterranean cannibals. Screenwriter Werner Liepolt based the story off the cannibal legend of Sawney Bean, and it was director Christopher Speeth’s first and only feature film. It shows its low budget seams, but it’s unafraid to go full blown weird. More importantly, it’s one of the best films to make excellent use of the carnival/amusement park imagery.


Escape from Tomorrow

Writer/Director Randy Moore boldly sets his surreal horror story in the world’s most well-known theme park; Walt Disney World. Employing guerilla filmmaking, Moore shot his film inside the actual park on the sly without permission. The plot sees a recently unemployed father descend into madness during a family trip to Disney World. Hallucinations of demented animatronics and hypnotic, park induced madness culminates into an insane finale.


Carnival of Souls

Instead of high octane thrills, this trip to the carnival is one of slow, permeating dread. When Mary Henry miraculously survives a harrowing car accident, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to a mysterious, abandoned carnival. Shot at the Saltair Pavilion, one of the first amusement parks in the west, the setting enhances the eerie atmosphere. A slow burn befitting of an episode of the Twilight Zone, this carnival is one you won’t wish to take a trip to anytime soon.


The Funhouse

Leave it to teenagers to want to spend the night in a traveling carnival’s dark ride after it closes for the night. Too bad for them that they witnessed a creep in a Frankenstein’s Monster mask murder a prostitute in a fit of rage. Their night of fun becomes a night of terror as the teens find themselves locked in the ride and hunted by the silent creep. Tobe Hooper’s slasher takes full advantage of its setting for some scares, and the surprising face of the killer fits right in with the theming.


More information and tickets to Fathom Events premiere of Blood Fest can be found here.

Horror journalist, RT Top Critic, and Critics Choice Association member. Co-Host of the Bloody Disgusting Podcast. Has appeared on PBS series' Monstrum, served on the SXSW Midnighter shorts jury, and moderated horror panels for WonderCon and SeriesFest.

Editorials

‘Leprechaun Returns’ – The Charm of the Franchise’s Legacy Sequel

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leprechaun returns

The erratic Leprechaun franchise is not known for sticking with a single concept for too long. The namesake (originally played by Warwick Davis) has gone to L.A., Las Vegas, space, and the ‘hood (not once but twice). And after an eleven-year holiday since the Davis era ended, the character received a drastic makeover in a now-unmentionable reboot. The critical failure of said film would have implied it was time to pack away the green top hat and shillelagh, and say goodbye to the nefarious imp. Instead, the Leprechaun series tried its luck again.

The general consensus for the Leprechaun films was never positive, and the darker yet blander Leprechaun: Origins certainly did not sway opinions. Just because the 2014 installment took itself seriously did not mean viewers would. After all, creator Mark Jones conceived a gruesome horror-comedy back in the early nineties, and that format is what was expected of any future ventures. So as horror legacy sequels (“legacyquels”) became more common in the 2010s, Leprechaun Returns followed suit while also going back to what made the ‘93 film work. This eighth entry echoed Halloween (2018) by ignoring all the previous sequels as well as being a direct continuation of the original. Even ardent fans can surely understand the decision to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.

Leprechaun Returns “continued the [franchise’s] trend of not being consistent by deciding to be consistent.” The retconning of Steven Kostanski and Suzanne Keilly’s film was met with little to no pushback from the fandom, who had already become accustomed to seeing something new and different with every chapter. Only now the “new and different” was familiar. With the severe route of Origins a mere speck in the rearview mirror, director Kotanski implemented a “back to basics” approach that garnered better reception than Zach Lipovsky’s own undertaking. The one-two punch of preposterous humor and grisly horror was in full force again.

LEPRECHAUN

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

With Warwick Davis sitting this film out — his own choice — there was the foremost challenge of finding his replacement. Returns found Davis’ successor in Linden Porco, who admirably filled those blood-stained, buckled shoes. And what would a legacy sequel be without a returning character? Jennifer Aniston obviously did not reprise her final girl role of Tory Redding. So, the film did the next best thing and fetched another of Lubdan’s past victims: Ozzie, the likable oaf played by Mark Holton. Returns also created an extension of Tory’s character by giving her a teenage daughter, Lila (Taylor Spreitler).

It has been twenty-five years since the events of the ‘93 film. The incident is unknown to all but its survivors. Interested in her late mother’s history there in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, Lila transferred to the local university and pledged a sorority — really the only one on campus — whose few members now reside in Tory Redding’s old home. The farmhouse-turned-sorority-house is still a work in progress; Lila’s fellow Alpha Epsilon sisters were in the midst of renovating the place when a ghost of the past found its way into the present.

The Psycho Goreman and The Void director’s penchant for visceral special effects is noted early on as the Leprechaun tears not only into the modern age, but also through poor Ozzie’s abdomen. The portal from 1993 to 2018 is soaked with blood and guts as the Leprechaun forces his way into the story. Davis’ iconic depiction of the wee antagonist is missed, however, Linden Porco is not simply keeping the seat warm in case his predecessor ever resumes the part. His enthusiastic performance is accentuated by a rotten-looking mug that adds to his innate menace.

LEPRECHAUN RETURNS sequel

Pictured: Taylor Spreitler, Pepi Sonuga, and Sai Bennett as Lila, Katie and Rose in Leprechaun Returns.

The obligatory fodder is mostly young this time around. Apart from one luckless postman and Ozzie — the premature passing of the latter character removed the chance of caring about anyone in the film — the Leprechaun’s potential prey are all college aged. Lila is this story’s token trauma kid with caregiver baggage; her mother thought “monsters were always trying to get her.” Lila’s habit of mentioning Tory’s mental health problem does not make a good first impression with the resident mean girl and apparent alcoholic of the sorority, Meredith (Emily Reid). Then there are the nicer but no less cursorily written of the Alpha Epsilon gals: eco-conscious and ex-obsessive Katie (Pepi Sonuga), and uptight overachiever Rose (Sai Bennett). Rounding out the main cast are a pair of destined-to-die bros (Oliver Llewellyn Jenkins, Ben McGregor). Lila and her peers range from disposable to plain irritating, so rooting for any one of them is next to impossible. Even so, their overstated personalities make their inevitable fates more satisfying.

Where Returns excels is its death sequences. Unlike Jones’ film, this one is not afraid of killing off members of the main cast. Lila, admittedly, wears too much plot armor, yet with her mother’s spirit looming over her and the whole story — comedian Heather McDonald put her bang-on Aniston impersonation to good use as well as provided a surprisingly emotional moment in the film — her immunity can be overlooked. Still, the other characters’ brutal demises make up for Lila’s imperviousness. The Leprechaun’s killer set-pieces also happen to demonstrate the time period, seeing as he uses solar panels and a drone in several supporting characters’ executions. A premortem selfie and the antagonist’s snarky mention of global warming additionally add to this film’s particular timestamp.

Critics were quick to say Leprechaun Returns did not break new ground. Sure, there is no one jetting off to space, or the wacky notion of Lubdan becoming a record producer. This reset, however, is still quite charming and entertaining despite its lack of risk-taking. And with yet another reboot in the works, who knows where the most wicked Leprechaun ever to exist will end up next.


Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.

The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.

Leprechaun Returns movie

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

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