The Carnage Collection – review

The Carnage Collection attempts to be an anthology of horror stories. Where it fails is that there is usually something that ties it all together in a coherent framework. While The Carnage Collection does have a framework, it is a flimsy one that does not have a worthy pay-off for the time spent watching the several lame stories that compose this anthology series.

The story begins with a cable salesman selling a new service to a young man. As he hooks up his new box the young man flips through the channels and the screen is what we are supposedly seeing. The stories consist of the following:

- A killer foul-mouth decorative Santa which kills two brothers.

- A POV shot story of a guy buying drugs. He takes some mysterious drug and hallucinates. The end.

- A lonely guy has sex with his VCR, which comes alive and kills him.

- Two guys go searching for weed and get a text to go to the cemetery where a robed figure gives them weed, which causes them to rot and die.

- A girl draws a picture of a creepy clown, which comes alive and kills the girl’s family and two random women in the woods.

- A suicidal man is saved from death constantly by a guardian angel that is actually the angel of death making sure he meets his appointed fate.

- A girl is chased in the woods by a masked killer who kidnaps and brutally tortures her. She then manages to grab his knife and kill her attacker before dying of her wounds.

- A girl with a lot of stuffed animals gets a plush sloth she names Rufio that she believes can talk. Then she proceeds to drug and rape a friend at the urging of the Rufio. She first rapes with a plastic doll, then with a knife. After the rape she kills herself.

All of these stories come together inevitably because the cable man is the devil and apparently he just wanted to kill an average guy by having him watch garbage. Most of these stories seem more like jokes with no punch line.

The acting is abysmal and the people involved seem to be reading off cue cards at times. The camera work is so amateur that it is often hard to tell what is actually happening on screen. It comes off more like someone got their home movie made in to a feature length film. Not that it really matters since the subject material seems to be made to display the bitter opinion the filmmakers have of the world.

The best anthology movies usually make each story something that could easily stand on its own. This movie has sections that are more like commercials in the middle of a fever dream. With eight stories and the framework it feels like the writer just tossed out ideas in a brainstorming session and they filmed it no matter what. The sex and rape scenes might not be realistic but the use of sex toys makes the scenes borderline pornographic at times. That level of exploitation just for shock value is just annoying and tacky.

If you are looking for really good horror anthology movies I recommend Trick ‘r Treat, Tales From the Darkside, and Creepshow. There are a few moments that are such as seeing the killer Santa stabbing a guy and realizing the decorative Santa has tape in his fists to hold items. These “so bad it is good” moments are okay at best, but, like a breath of fresh air at a Snoop Dog concert, it is a rare thing. An anthology movie should keep its central theme in mind and remember what it is trying to achieve with each story. The Carnage Collection are just ideas that are too underdeveloped for an actual plot with stories that are the equivalent of the aristocrats jokes.