Non Abstract-Review: Carnival Magic (1981)

From https://www.grindhousedatabase.com/
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Director: Al Adamson

Screenplay: Mark Weston and Bob Levine

Cast: Don Stewart as Markov; Jennifer Houlton as Ellen; Howard Segal as David; Regina Carrol as Kate; Joe Cirillo as Kirk; Mark Weston as Stoney; Charles Reynolds as Dr. Poole; Diane Kettering as Kim

Synopsis: The Stoney Martin Carnival is hitting hard times, but their salvation and draw for larger crowds is already on their premises. One of the carnival's acts Markov the Magician has a friend named Alex he hasn't let anyone meet, who happens to be a talking chimpanzee.

Before we get to Carnival Magic, there is the unfortunate tale of director Al Adamson which hands a spectre over his work. This is something to remember whilst we have it shown on the 2017 reboot Mystery Science Theatre 3000, alongside the fact Adamson himself is a curiosity in cult cinema. The infamous director of Dracula Vs. Frankenstein (1971) is idiosyncratic but not from the context for many of being a loved director - infamously throughout his incredible tome Nightmare U.S.A, about American independent horror films, Stephen Thrower's reviews about Al Adamson films get a bit personal in their comments. Adamson to his credit is still talked of today, and thankfully not just for the unfortunate real life ending, that after he killed by his live-in contractor and had his body hidden beneath the concrete and tile-covered floor where his hot tub once sat in 1995.

Thankfully the tale of Carnival Magic, including its real life tale, is light hearted and weird when, after a string of exploitation and horror films, Adamson wanted to make a family film. Just after Clint Eastwood struck box office gold with Every Which Way But Loose (1978), clearly Adamson decided to reinterpret this and the famous Beatles song Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My [Talking] Monkey by way of carnival related melodrama. Said "me" is Markov the Magnificent, raised as an orphan by monks in Nepal and taught supernatural abilities, from being able to talk to animals to bending iron bars and even being able to let others do so by touching them. The monkey is Alex or Alexander the Great, a talking chimpanzee that Markov has had living in his trailer in secret until the owner's daughter Ellen (Jennifer Houlton) convinces him to include Alex in his act. Said Alex, arguably the talking monkey who mumbles his words that most in cinema as a complete mush mouth, is talented but also slightly perverted when he steals the magic assistant Kate's underwear, played by Adamson's muse and wife Regina Carrol, and in lieu of another box office smash, Smokey and the Bandit (1977), even gets into a high-speed chase from the police.

It's the template you'd find in future family films, barring the stealing of lingerie, with Markov's show drawing both the patrons but also the envy of Kirk, the lion tamer jealous his status has been usurped. There's also the issue of Ellen wanting to grow up as a woman than a child nicknamed "Buddy" by her father, much to his concern when she becomes romantically linked to the carnival's accountant. Carnival Magic for three-fourths of its length is, to put it bluntly, painfully dull. Large portions of it consists of a lot of angst ridden drama which leads to characters approaching each other in a random location, especially the woods, and getting into moralistic conversations about overcoming the loss of loved ones or the responsibilities as a father. Adamson wants to convey a message in spite of being opposed to pace and entertainment; even its own genre, as there's no children in the main cast either, a family film mainly consisting of middle aged men and with Adamson's wife Regina Carrol showing a surprising amount, with her full figure and low cut tops, you wouldn't be able to get away in modern "family friendly" viewing.

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It's a slog, but then, as if to redeem Carnival Magic or to force it to exist for me as a film to remember, it gets increasingly weirder as the finale approaches. There is material which is absolutely too dark for children to see, when Kirk slaps his girlfriend around as response to kidnapping Alex to give him to a scientist, a scientist who explicitly wants to vivisect him despite even his staff showing remorse to the idea and seeing a visibly sentient animal strapped to the bed. The escalation from there becomes insane...

[Major Spoilers]

...when Alex tries to commit suicide with poison, which is a moment which cannot be described in anyway but dumbfoundment, regardless of the target audience, of how Carnival Magic has entered into this territory. For all the mind numbing content of before, this is where a madness takes place more so as everything is taken deathly serious. There's a perverseness, unsure whether to laugh or feel startlement, as Alex is taken to a human hospital and has a conventional death bed scene with the heart rate monitor used for dramatic effect. Even if he recovers, there's still a flat line, and the power of love and psychic ability involved just before smash cutting the end credits and a carnival parade in the streets. The emotional tugging of the heart strings, contrasted by it being an actual chimpanzee on the bed, regardless of Darwin's theories of evolution, is truly surreal and distorts how a viewer is meant to read all this.

[Spoilers End]

Does it redeem Carnival Magic? No, but what transpires in the final act puts a cherry on the bizarre experience and makes it unforgettable. Not surprisingly, Carnival Magic was lost in time until Alamo Drafthouse programmer Zack Carlson found a print and started showing it in the early 2010s. More prints actually existed then he presumed, but the discovery of the film was a brief jolt of morbid excitement for its perverseness, shown on Turner Classic Movies and even getting a Blu Ray release back before films like this, such as Adamson's own Dracula Vs. Frankenstein, were getting even 2k and 4k restorations. Even Al Adamson has benefitted from this resurgence through films like Carnival Magic, a happy conclusion that should outshine his tragic end. Again, Carnival Magic can be agony rather than pleasurable, but the car crash that was its conclusion is legitimately bonkers. If anything, the trajectory from inanity to this ending is a hell of a lot more emotionally compelling to experience as a viewer than anything more conventional. 

From https://adayon.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/
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