Title: Carnival of Souls

Starring: Bobbie Phillips, Shawnee Smith

Directed By: Adam Grossman

Produced By: Wes Craven

Released: 1998

We have seen some of the greatest movies ever made, and "Carnival of Souls" isn't among them. "Jacob's Ladder" however is one of the greats. This movie made every attempt to be "Jacob's Ladder," from the erratic head shaking of the demons to the question of whether the events really took place.

There are so many reasons why this movie should be drop-kicked, we just don't know where to begin. To list them all would be to paraphrase the entire script.

The protagonist of the story witnessed her mother's murder at a young age. The killer was apparently molesting the protagonist. Now she's all grown up, and she believes he's after her. The plot, along with the promised carnival locale, works in theory. Communism also works...In Theory!*

In actuality, the carnival is only onscreen for maybe a whole five minutes (Note: Blue aprons protect against zombieness). When they finally do get to the carnival you expect some really frightening clowns. When we saw their sorry excuses for "scary" clowns, we were too disgusted to even laugh.

Of all the dream sequences (is any scene in this movie not a dream sequence?), the carwash had to be the most amusing. We all know we have the desire to stay in the car while it goes through the carwash. But can you remember the last time they actually let you? We can't! I guess we're lucky they won't let us go through, seeing as how there are spastic demons in there.

Okay, Okay, so there's this guy, I think he's supposed to be like her guardian angel or something. What the hell were they thinking? The movie was bad enough without him. And another thing, who the wrote his dialogue? He's always trying to get philosophical, and failing miserably. The only thing keeping us from hunting him down with crossbows, is his humor factor. Everytime he tried to be serious we'd bust up laughing.

This movie truly sucks. It is an incredible waste of any audiences time. And to think we sat through it twice to perfect this review. People actually spent money to make this? The only thing that would have made this movie tolerable is gratuitous nudity, and it didn't even give us that. When you notice it was produced by Wes Craven you will say to yourself, "what else could I expect from the maker of 'The Hills Have Eyes'"? Do yourself a favor, when you see "Carnival of Souls" on the shelf pass it by and rent "Jacob's Ladder" instead.

* Trey Caddy in no way advocates capitalism

Stays Crunchy Even In Milk...

Rest in peace: Stanley Kubrick