Carnage Road (2000)

Posted on Aug 01, 2001 under Horror |

aka Carnage: The Legend of Quiltface

Produced and directed by Massimiliano Cerchi
Written by John Polonia
Starring
- Dean Paul
- Molinee Dawn
- Mike Paulie
- Mack Hail

If you’ve been hanging around here a while, you may have discovered something: I hate the Polonia brothers. Not the actual people, mind you; I’ve never met them, but I hear they’re wonderful fellas socially. But their movies, at least the ones I’ve seen (Bad Magic and Blood Red Planet) are heart-rendingly, stomach-churningly, brain-numbling bad. Bad Magic is the only movie I’ve ever discovered that can actually leave lesions on your cerebral cortex.

Thus it was with some, shall we say, trepidation that I sat down to watch Carnage Road, a shot-on-video collaboration between director Max Cerchi of Satan Claus and Hellinger, a man of some visual flair but disjointed storytelling ability, and scriptwriter John Polonia, one of the aforementioned brothers. (The other brother, Ed, handled the main editing chores.) I am happy to report that I survived the viewing, lesion-free. While this movie is nowhere near great (in fact, I don’t know that it even gets within the same ZIP code as “good”), it wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared it would be. Would that I could say that about all the movies I watch.

“So — which irritating stock character are you?”

We open with that classic slasher-film staple, the Fodder. To wit, a young male photographer is out at an abandoned house in the Nevada desert with his girlfriend. Oblivious to his apparent lack of talent, the girlfriend soon doffs her top (don’t get excited — the view ain’t that great) and soon after that, the shutter-clicking ceases for some activities of a different nature (photo-boy was thoughtful enough to bring a blanket). But then — a machete enters the frame! And an untimely demise soon befalls our amorous couple!

Okay, now for our real characters. Students Robert (Dean Paul) and Linda (Molinee Dawn) are preparing for their own photo trip into the desert to gets shots for their class project. They plan to travel with two other classmates: Amy (Melissa Brown), the Designated Bitch, and Mike (Sean Wing), the Designated Geek. Both of these two are so odious, so infernally annoying, that one cannot imagine them having been included for any reason other than to die hideously.

The drive out to the desert is enlivened by their hired driver (Mack Hail), who’s actually one of the more engaging characters around: A profanity-laden motormouth who regales his passengers with the legend of “Quiltface,” whose origin sounds like an amalgam of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes. On the other hand, the driver’s scarcely a reliable witness, having also told them that he saw the aliens at Area 51 during his stint in the Navy.

**Yeah, sure, it’s interesting the first time you see it…**

Anyway. They get out to the desert, and here’s where we learn what kind of people we’re dealing with. See, they’re out here for a photography project, since they’re all in the same photo class, right? Yet somehow they came out with one camera between them (and Robert’s the only one who ever uses it). I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that there are additional rolls of film in the camera case, but there’s definitely none of the other equipment you may want on a photo shoot, not even a light meter. These people also didn’t bring water (!!!), sunscreen, lunch (this despite planning to be out there until 8pm), hats for either of the girls, sunglasses… In short, these people are idiots, waiting for Darwinism to take its toll.

As you can imagine, there’s some pointless bickering (what’s a horror flick without bickering?), thanks to the fact that neither Geek Boy or Bitch Chick have great personalities. So, after wandering around for a while, with Robert taking lackluster pictures of the girls posing with all the artistic sensibilities of a family snapping some Disneyland shots for the scrapbook, Mike the Geek decides to have a rest in the middle of the desert. Which would be great, except the legend of Quiltface is actually real, so the inattentive mike is easily slaughered by –

– a man wearing an off-the-shelf Halloween mask! No, seriously. It used to be featured fairly regularly on the back cover of Fangoria, and it’s very much inspired by Leatherface. If you want it, you can see it here.

Mmm — machete-lickin’ good!

(A side note: I stopped the tape at this point to hunt up something to eat in the kitchen. When I got back, Rear Window was on TV. I couldn’t help myself; I watched it for the next forty minutes, up to the end. And then I just couldn’t bring myself to back to Carnage Road — the contrast was just too extreme. So the rest was viewed on a subsequent night.)

Anyway. The other three come back looking for Mike, and he’s gone — but then Quiltface shows up again! He grabs Amy and drags her off, while Robert and Linda run like a couple of hysterical ninnies, to the point that Robert can’t tell where they are. (Um, broad flat land? Clear sunlight? Directions aren’t that hard, Robert — maybe we should add “compass” or maybe “map” to that list of essential things you didn’t bring.)

Quiltface drags Amy back to his lair, where he chases her through a crumbling house before chopping her in the head with his machete. In case you’re interested, they used the same cutaway machete trick as in the famous chop-the-zombie’s-head scene in Dawn of the Dead, minus the rolled-back footage. And I hope you’re a big fan of that particular trick, because you’re going to see it three more times as the movie goes on — not just the same technique, but the same damned cutaway machete.

And then finally, as Robert and Linda are getting over their hysterics and getting their heads screwed on straight, Quiltface comes back for them. Linda gets a fatal chop to the torso (yup, same cutaway machete), and Robert gets a wound to the head that, by rights, should have been fatal (because, you know, it was the same cutaway machete). Instead, he’s out for a while, and when he wakes up Linda’s body is gone. In a panic, he stumbles across the desert in search of help and finds the rundown mobile home yard of the creepy old man.

Just in case you think all modern horror is populated exclusively by young beautiful people…

Oh, have I not mentioned the creepy old man (Mike Paulie)? He’s already shown up in a couple of insert scenes — you know, looking to the horizon, muttering to himself, etc. He’s an imposing character who looks like he could be the brother of the late-period Gunnar Hansen: Long straggly hair and beard, fierce eyebrows, an overbearing belly… Unfortunately, he’s got that same Gunnar Hansen problem of opening his mouth and letting words come out that destroy that image. In fact, this guy’s a lot worse; his every line comes out with all the drama of the ingredients list on your breakfast cereal. He is pretty imposing visually, though, so we’ll let it ride. (And the abandoned trailer complex in which he lives is a pretty nifty backdrop — one which director Mac Cerchi stumbled across while looking for locations, and recognized for its value. It’s one of the strengths of the movie.)

At last, Robert thinks he may have some sanctuary. But hmmm… What are the odds that the old man is really insane and working with Quiltface?

Well, whaddaya think?

This is the kind of movie for which the word “uneven” was coined. The script is 100% derivative, although that’s not the impediment you might think. If it were, say, an imitation of a recent pop horror flick like Scream and its ilk, we could dismiss it as a simple ripoff and have done with it. But it’s very clear that this is, in the best sense of the word, an homage to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Hills Have Eyes series. Knowing references to both abound (in one scene, Robert recites an “urban legend” which is actually the premise of The Hills Have Eyes; in another, Linda tries to escape Quiltface’s knife with a come-on scene very reminiscent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2). This is very obviously a Valentine card to both of those movies. It’s lamentable, then, that it adds nothing to what has gone before.

Ladies and gentlemen, the long-awaited death of Carrot Top!

The acting ranges from flatter than week-old root beer to quite good. Amy and Mike, being the one-note stereotypes they are, are impossible to judge, but Robert and Linda are well-portrayed. In fact, Dean Paul’s Robert is so authentic it’s almost a stumbling block; his hysterical reaction to the bloodshed is both understandable and believable, but his panicked voice is so choked with tears and emotion that half of his lines are unintelligible. (The driver is a hoot, though — which may be why there are admittedly pointless scenes with him edited into the middle of the movie.)

Alas, Quiltface himself is a definite lightweight. Aside from the rubber mask, he just doesn’t have the quiet, stolid menace of a Jason Voorhees or a Mike Myers, nor the unrestrained ferocity of the families in either of the two inspiring series. He’s just a skinny guy in a jumpsuit, capering around the desert with a machete.

Probably the most disappointing aspect of the whole production is the camerawork. I don’t make a priori judgements against video footage, but the fact remains that it’s best used in productions where dialogue and acting are going to carry the day, rather than visual composition. But if you’re going to shoot in the desert, you damned well better have the wherewithal to realize the incredible power of the desert tableau. This movie didn’t. And shaky, untracked camera movement only detracted further from what could have been a major strength. (A pity that they couldn’t use higher-end DV equipment such as used in HorrorVision, which contains probably the best desert footage ever shot on video.)

Even if shot with film and professional equipment, this still wouldn’t have been anything to write home about. As it stands, it’s a fair-to-partly-cloudy example of do-it-yourself filmmaking.