"The Devil's Carnival" (2012) You Can't Help But Fall

The Trailer:

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman
Cast: Sean Patrick Flannery, Briana Evigan, & Jessica Lowndes
Plot Summary: Three lost souls— John (Sean Patrick Flannery), Ms. Merrywood (Briana Evigan), and Tamara (Jessica Lowndes)— find themselves in the depths of Hell in the Devil's Carnival. Each are faced with the sins they committed in life and must decide if they will continue with their sinful ways, or will they allow themselves to be redeemed?

Okay, so this devilishly wonderful film is one of my personal faves. I've watched it about a million times: I love it that much. I decided to talk about, though, because I just received the sequel in the mail the other day (I pre-ordered it sometime in December) and plan on discussing that one in a future blog post. But I couldn't just talk about the sequel without y'all knowing my feelings about the first one, right? By the way, this film is a musical, so if you're not into that, don't watch it.

I'm first going to discuss the creating duo of Darren Lynn Bousman (director) and Terrance Zdunich (writer/actor). This is the second project they've done together: The first being Repo! The Genetic Opera, which is another one of my faves. The world that they create here in The Devil's Carnival is glorious and magical. A carnival in hell, while not an entirely original concept, is frightening and executed to a tee. The set is lavishly decorated with carnival games, booths, tents, and etc. There is a warm glow to everything, rich colors and a slew of crazily costumed characters that complete the look of every scene. The separate stories of these three lost souls (who, if mentioned collectively, I will refer to them as the Sinners) are intriguing, though a little confusing at first. The first fifteen minutes or so are a tad bit puzzling as it's hard to decipher whether the Sinners' stories are going to converge or stay separate. And only gets more confusing as John and Ms. Merrywood latch onto each other, while Tamara never makes contact with them. But once you accept that Tamara is going to remain alone in her journey through the carnival, it'll be smooth sailing from then on. To further explain the types of people the Sinners are, Lucifer (Terrance Zdunich) uses Aesop's Fables to help convey the sins they committed in life and how they struggle now in Hell with those same sins. As a fan of literature in general, I am pleased at the allusions made between the characters of Aesonp's Fables and the three Sinners we are presented with in this film. The Sinners, with parallels to their respective fables, are each met with a challenge/test that will determine if they're worthy of redemption or if they will continuously cycle through the carnival committing the same sins over and over again for all eternity.

Now for the acting. The actors portraying the Sinners are fantastic as are the actors who portray the carnies. Sean Patrick Flannery is amazing as John, a grieving father who couldn't deal with the death of his child, or the guilt he felt for his son's death rather, and chose to end his life because of it. Throughout the film he insists that his son is lost in the carnival and that he must find him. He is a frazzled, nervous, sad man which Sean Patrick Flannery captures vividly and with such anguish. Ms. Merrywood on the other hand is a kleptomaniac, stealing anything and everything she can get her hands on. She is a manipulative, conniving woman with no regards for others. Her brash attitude is portrayed with such vigor by the wonderful Briana Evigan: no one else could play that part as well as she does. Tamara, the last and least sinful of the sinners, is sent to hell for being a gullible teenager. She constantly finds herself in situations where she puts too much trust in others and ends up getting hurt for it, and does the same thing upon waking up in the carnival. Jessica Lowndes has a naive innocence about her that works perfectly for this character. Other actors include Dayton Callie, Emilie Autumn, Marc Senter, Ivan Moody, Nivek Ogre, Alexa PenaVega, Bill Moseley, & Paul Sorvino. Everyone has screen time, though most aren't on screen very long. But they all leave an impression, which carries over into the sequel. On top of their great acting skills, the singing is just as impressive. All the songs in the film are catchy and fun with sometimes silly lyrics or sometimes very dark lyrics. Eaither way, each song gets across a point and is sung with soul by each and all of the characters. My favorite song is probably Grace for Sale, which you can listen to here:

But every song is pretty fucking amazing!

What I love most about The Devil's Carnival is it's take on Heaven and Hell, God and the Devil (interchangeable with Lucifer in this film) . Here we are shown Lucifer to be magnanimous and generous though still devious, while God is shown to be careless and cruel. I also kind of like the implied idea that God may not be as wonderful and pious as he's always portrayed to be, that he may be more vicious than the Devil. This first installment in the series (they hope to make three films) is the introduction to hell and the start of a war between Heaven and Hell, a war that God isn't prepared for. In the end, the film might not be the best produced piece of cinema ever made, but it's made with a lot of heart and a lot of love. Everyone who is working on this project is doing it because they have a passion for the story and what it stands for. The only bad thing about I'll say about this film is that it is only fifty-five minutes long. Like, what? How can you tell a story this grand in under an hour? But I suppose that is due to budgetary reasons. Anyways, like I said this is one of my favorite films ever in life and I have already watched multiple and will continue to watch it multiple times. It's that fucking good.