Carnage

(1972) **

Carnage starts in the past. A newlywed couple is shown standing in a romantic embrace with wedding music playing on the phonograph. Slowly, the groom reaches into a drawer, pulls out a gun, and blows his beloved’s head off. He then turns the gun onto himself. We later learn that this was a suicide pact because the bride was terminally ill or something like that. Fast forward to the (1972) future. A newlywed couple moves into the very same home, which is now apparently haunted by the ghosts of the first newlywed couple. When kitchen appliances start to do weird things, the couple slowly realizes that the house does not want them to live there.

So I watched this thinking that it sounded like an Amityville Horror kind of thing. The problem is that for the most part the “evil” house is merely an annoying house rather than really evil. In one scene the bride wants to write something down on a piece of paper. The house, apparently sensing her desire, hides the pad of paper she wanted to use! In another scene the bride is speaking to her father on the telephone and needs to do something in the kitchen for a moment. She tells her father to wait and she’ll be right back. As she goes into the kitchen, the house hangs up the phone! This isn’t a scary house at all; it’s a house that thinks it’s funny when it’s not. Okay eventually the house actually does a few lethal things, but for most of the film it just inconveniences its inhabitants. It’s never made clear why the suicide newlyweds don’t want anyone else living in their home, I mean, why would they care? With occasional sprinkles of graphic gore, Carnage definitely falls into the so-bad-it’s-fun category.