Carny

Plot synopsis:
The Jersey Devil appears in quick flash glimpses in the very beginning of the film as it growls. After Cap (Alan C. Peterson) kills the man who sold him the Jersey Devil, Cap and his assistant attempted to bring the Jersey Devil into the carnival of the truck. Cap shoots it with a tranquilizer dart to calm the Jersey Devil down. However, as Cap's assistant heaves on the Jersey Devil in chains, it slashes at his eye, causing it to bleed. Cap eventually shoots the Jersey Devil with more tranquilizer darts which causes the beast to finally pass out.
When the sheriff Atlas (Lou Diamond Phillips) comes to investigate Cap's carnival under the local pastor's requests, Cap takes him into the tent where the Jersey Devil is being kept for the opening show. The Jersey Devil growls at Atlas from inside its cage and Atlas, shocked at the Jersey Devil's hellish appearance, suggests that the Jersey Devil is not safe. During the opening show, the audience is shocked at the sight of the Jersey Devil. All except for the pastor's son Taylor (Matt Murray) and his friend who throws peanuts at the Jersey Devil from the audience. This angers the creature and the Jersey Devil eventually escapes from its cage and begins terrorizing the carnival. It throws a man inside the cage that it had been locked in and escapes the carnival right before flying into the Ferris wheel and injuring itself.
Later the following night, the Jersey Devil finds Taylor and his friend hiding in an old barn in the forest when it hears a dog barking at it. The Jersey Devil goes after the dog as Taylor and his friend escape the barn. However, the Jersey Devil eventually finds Taylor hiding under a bridge as his friend hides in an old car. The Jersey Devil lands on the bridge and then looks under it to find Taylor, who it kills and dismembers. Later when Taylor's friend, who survived the incident, and his mother are driving down a road in the forest, the Jersey Devil attacks him through the car window and flies off with him. As the mother is gazing at the skies trying to find him, the Jersey Devil drops his dead body on the car right before killing the mother.
Cap and his assistant later try to recapture the Jersey Devil by using tranquilizer darts. They stab Atlas' deputy to attract the Jersey Devil with the smell of his blood. However, as the Jersey Devil approaches, the deputy shoots at the beast right before dying, which causes the Jersey Devil to retreat. The Jersey Devil then sets its sights on Cap's carnival once more and kills several of his carnies. Cap later tries once again to recapture the beast by stabbing his own assistant to death to attract the Jersey Devil with his blood. The Jersey Devil soon arrives and sneaks up from behind Cap. Cap then shoots the Jersey Devil with his new tranquilizer darts that "have enough drugs in them to put an elephant to sleep for a week", which knocks out the Jersey Devil once more.
When Cap is arrested for murder after Atlas discovers part of a tranquilizer dart in his deputy's back, the Jersey Devil awakens from the tranquilizer darts and arrives at the police station where it kills Cap. The pastor, who wants revenge on the Jersey Devil and the carnival for the death of his son, stabs the Jersey Devil in its shoulders with two tranquilizer darts. This eventually knocks out the Jersey Devil. However, when the pastor and his followers arrive at the carnival, the Jersey Devil awakens right before the pastor's eyes. The Jersey Devil growls at the pastor and then kills him.
When Atlas arrives at the now burning carnival, he attempts to rescue one of Cap's carnies, Samara (Simone-Élise Girard), and the Jersey Devil arrives to kill them as it lands on one of the RVs. The Jersey Devil chases Samara to the Ferris wheel where the "Gentle Giant" attempts to stop it. However, the Jersey Devil attacks and kills him. Atlas eventually rams the Jersey Devil into the Ferris wheel with a car in attempts to kill him. As the Jersey Devil is rammed into the Ferris wheel by Atlas, it growls at him from the front car window until the Ferris wheel eventually collapses on both of them. This finally kills both the Jersey Devil and Atlas. Before the Jersey Devil dies, its hand is seen collapsing.

Tags: violence

Review:
"It's another one of THOSE films where the creature is only shown in brief, shaky camera shots to avoid special effects costs." Luckily, I was wrong.Of course the creature escapes, just like you'd expect in a horror movie, beginning a fairly typical "monster on the loose" scenario--because really, you can't make a movie unless the monster is on the loose.
Who'd like a movie where the monster just stayed in its cage and ate mice all day???
There are three things that set Carny apart from the typical Sci-Fi B movie.1) The characters.
The characters aren't -just- there to be eaten; you get a feeling like they're actual people.
And again, monster-on-the-loose flicks really don't require a lot of deep, existential dialogue.Give Carny a chance.
There were some credible makeup and physical effects, a number of competent actors supporting a script that avoided many of the more common clichés for what has become its own genre, the Sci-Fi Channel monster flick usually produced in Canada.Lou Diamond Phillips stars, cast yet again as a small town sheriff battling things that fly and/or creep whilst chewing scenery, secondary characters and extras at will.
Good flying monster, good story, good character development, and good location photography.
Lou Diamond Phillips is totally acceptable as the small town sheriff, and the evil carny owner is well played by Alan C.
"Carny" is superior to two other "Jersey Devil" movies, "The 13th Child Legend of the Jersey Devil" (2003), which is terrible, and the somewhat interesting "The Last Broadcast" (2006).
One that causes mayhem, for certain, but not nearly as much as a few of the humans involved.A carnival visiting a town has as its star sideshow attraction a beast which remains hidden from us until it escapes from its cage.
The carnival master has assured Lou Diamond Phillips (the local sheriff) that there will be no problem with the sedated and incarcerated...thing.We know different.
There is another problem - a local preacher that hates all things carnival, and he particularly is interested in seeing that the escapee is captured.I will leave it to you to find out how this whole thing ends.
"Carny" was like a trip down memory lane for me, and perhaps will be for anyone who watched horror movies during the mid- and late 80's.
This movie was like it was plucked right out of that era and then shined up for a 2009 release.The story in "Carny" was pretty tame.
A carnival of traveling freaks come to a small town, and with them they have a new attraction.
Pretty much standard 80's horror plot right there.Now, I think that the creature actually looked good and was believable.
I read some reviews who weren't as forgiving to the effects and the creature, but I found it to actually be good enough.And as for the cast and the acting, well there were some questionable performances, sure, but there were also some fairly decent performances as well.
Don't put your hopes up for any award-winning performances, because then you will be sorely disappointed.As for being a horror movie, then "Carny" wasn't particularly scary at all.
Not saying anything else, just watch it yourself.All in all, "Carny" was a fairly average horror movie, though it was weak in scares.
The good thing about it was that most of it was actually shot during the day, so you had good, clear and well-lit scenes, and you saw the creature clearly in the daylight (as to where many other movies use glimpses and darkness to hide whatever is prowling the innocent).
Lou D.Philips plays a small-town sheriff who goes on the hunt for a winged creature that has escaped from a traveling carnival.
Ah, but the carny owner (Peterson) is an extremely nasty and hideous-looking fellow who doesn't hesitate to kill anyone who gets in his path either.
And the local minister (didn't catch the actor's name) is hellbent on shutting down the carnival, even if it means burning it to the ground with all the carny folks inside their tents.
He gives the same wooden, mail-it-in performance he gave in BATS (where he also played a small-town sheriff), with no indication he has learned anything new about acting in the interim.
Small town sheriff Lou Diamond Phillips (as Atlas) has his hands full when a circus arrives.
The main attraction is "The Jersey Devil" stolen by carnival manager A.C. Peterson (as "Cap" Caprini) in the opening minutes.
For some reason, Ms. Girard feels "safe" with her boss, who is arguably more wicked than his monster...God-fearing pastor Vlasta Vrana (as Owen) believes the circus will bring sin to the community and starts to campaign against "God's abomination." Ironically, his juvenile delinquent son Matt Murray (as Taylor) triggers the rampage of "Jersey Devil".
The gargoyle and Kyle Gatehouse (as Jesse) are nicely done.**** Carny (4/25/09) Sheldon Wilson ~ Lou Diamond Phillips, Alan C.
It does have some beautiful-looking and atmospheric sets and lighting, giving an appropriate nightmarish feeling, good make-up, a surprisingly well-designed and menacing monster, credible performances and a score that doesn't feel at that generic and also fits with the film's tone.
The story has a good if not groundbreaking(though it didn't need to be) concept and is actually mostly interesting, well-paced and with some scenes that are quite nail-biting.
When a circus arrives in a small town, their prized attraction in a captured Jersey Devil gets loose into the surrounding woodlands and forces the towns' sheriff to not only go out and stop the creature running wild on the townspeople as well as the carnival folks from their ire.This here was a surprisingly good and enjoyable Sci-Fi Channel creature feature.
An attack on a couple in a car is also quite good, the hunting party scenes where the townspeople try to get the creature are both quite fun and enjoyable watching their tactics to get at it while the creature just goes on the offensive.
The big one, though, and what makes the film so fun, is the major action scenes at the end starting off as a multi-person brawl at the police station which turns into a fight against the creature and then turning into a full-scale attack at the carnival.
Coming complete with some vicious kills, a ton of destruction, some explosions and some fun mini- moments that are strung together into a high-energy scene before the big battle with the creature making this one go out on a high mark as well.
The creature itself is given a lot of face time and the gargoyle-like appearance doesn't look all that bad, and along with the film's rather nice amount of blood and gore, these here are the film's good points.
One of the problems is that the escape of the creature comes a little too early in the film, barely twenty minutes in and without much of a set-up or anything.
The one-line back-story about what the thing is doesn't help, since it doesn't give off any information about it or even detailing the legend it's based on, and the creature's origins are a big mystery.
The last flaw is the constant preaching of the pastor in the film about the sins of the carnival and what they mean in terms of religion.
In Carny Lou Diamond Phillips is cast as the police chief of Reliance, New York a small town in the most rural part of upstate New York where the big event of the year is about to take place, a carnival has come to town.
The biggest attraction in the show is some kind of gargoyle like creature billed as the New Jersey Devil.
When it gets loose and starts terrorizing the area, Lou as the sheriff takes it upon himself to organize a hunting party.This is where it really gets ridiculous.
The rest of the cast is made up of Canadian players.Of course getting this gargoyle proves to be a rough go for Lou and his posse of hunters who are used to more docile creatures like deer.
There's also a side story about a crazy preacher wanting to see the carnival destroyed before he even knew about the gargoyle.Carny is one big mess of a film.
I had the recent misfortune to watch this "film" which was probably the worst I have ever seen, my initial expectations of a good plot for "Carny" were about psychopathic carnival people luring their victims in with trickery but no!
The town's pastor rants on and on about the carnival even before he has a good reason to.
The townspeople at the end are both stupid and unsympathetic as they promptly turn their efforts to killing people at the carnival rather than making sure the creature is dead.
When side-show circus owned by Cap (A.C. Peterson) arrives in Reliance, the greedy owner kills the driver that brings the new attraction – the Jersey Devil – and his henchman dumps the severed body in the woods and the trunk in the muddy lake.
The local sheriff Atlas (Lou Diamond Phillips) checks the permits of the carnival under the protests of the deranged pastor Owen (Vlasta Vrana) that does not want the abominations in the small town.
In the opening show, the Jersey Devil escapes and attacks the audience, killing Owen's son.
Atlas organizes a hunting party to kill the monster, while Cap and his partner try to capture it alive to sell to a wealthy investor.
"Carny" is really a terrible movie.
The story and the screenplay are awful, with a ridiculous conclusion; the development of the one- dimensional characters is shallow, even for the lead ones; and the Jersey Devil and the special effects are very poor.
2009's "Carny" is a TV monster-on-the-loose flick about a carnival stopping at a New York town with a new attraction, a gargoyle-like creature that turns out to be the infamous Jersey Devil.
The town's prominent pastor initially objects to the freakshow and goes over the edge after the creature gets loose.
The sheriff (Lou Diamond Phillips) rounds up some men to end the slaughter of innocents while the malevolent carny owner wants to recapture the creature for greedy purposes.Being a fan of winged-monster flicks like "Gargoyles" (1972), "Gargoyles: Wings of Darkness" (2004), "Wyvern" (2009) and even "Jeepers Creepers (2001), I was really looking forward to "Carny." But after a very intriguing start I was let down.The opening act with the introduction of the town, the characters, the carnival and the creature is the best part, but the film fumbles the ball in the second and final acts.
Circus-like scenarios are a surefire setting for horror/mystery tales, as verified by "The Funhouse" (1981), "Something Wicked This Way Comes" (1983) and even "The Howling VI: The Freaks" (1991), but "Carny" fails to truly capitalize on this attribute.The Human interest factor is next to zero.
We get three main characters: The evil freakshow owner, the wacko pastor and a likable sheriff.
Peripheral characters include the carnival owner's henchman, the pastor's son & friend, and a cougar fortune-teller, Samara.
Although the story throws in a self-sacrificial scene there's not enough depth to these characters or their relationships to make it moving.The second act involves a search-in-the-woods for the creature by the two groups noted above and I appreciated the serious, non-campy vibe (even while the villain and the Reverend treaded the waters of cartooniness).
A bloodthirsty monster is on the loose and these people are trying to kill (or capture) it; one man is likable, another is ultra-evil and the other is a wack-job.
The monster looks convincing and there's a lot of gore (not that I care about gore but some people do).The film was shot in Ottawa, which is a good stand-in for Northern New York since it's only an hour drive south.The runtime is 88 minutes.GRADE: C.
Two cops, one carnival with 4 or 5 sideshow freaks and a Ferris wheel, one greedy owner and his side kick.
But wait I forgot the star of the movie, The Jersey Devil.As a native New Yorker I use to hear tales of the Jersey Devil and how he would come after bad little girls who never listen to her parents.
That being me.Well it turns out someone has captured the creature and the owner of the carnival has got a buyer for it.
And he also has one minor problem, a crazy Pastor who believes Carnivals and the people who work there come from Hell so they must be gotten rid of and he is sending them right back to where they came from, Hell.The beast kills everybody in his path.
The greedy owner wants him back alive so the sheriff (Lou Diamond Phillips) allows him to the next morning to capture the Devil.
He kills the only other cop in town so the creature will smell the blood.
Doesn't the actors say wait there has to be another town this monster can fly to and continue his killing spree, what about calling the cops from all of the surrounding area?
It is not like it is a wolf or dog that got lose it is a freaking killing machine that flies.This is a movie you have to suspend all common sense to watch.
The pastor is really mad now because his son is dead and he blames the goober sheriff for allowing the carnival in the town and the people who work there.
The Goober Sheriff is nowhere to be seen when this is happening even though he is really right in the next cell which by the way also houses a rack of high powered rifles which he uses to escape from the cell when he comes to.
Lou Diamond Phillips in yet another movie that will briefly entertain and then be forgotten.
CARNY is little horror flick filmed in Canada for the Sci Fi Channel.
Peterson plays a greedy and murderous carnival owner that has just acquired a hideous monster for his traveling freak show.
The carnival comes to set up shop in a small Nebraska town.
Hidden amongst the roustabouts and sideshow oddities like the two-faced man is a steel cage where shackled is the newest attraction...half animal/half devil creature...Jersey Devil.
Influential citizen and Pentecostal minister Owen(Viasta Vrana)warns Atlas, the local Sheriff(Phillips), not to let the carnival open for business.
Nevertheless, the freak show opens to a good size crowd and after being taunted, the blood thirsty Jersey Devil breaks loose and begins to feast on the township.
A disreputable carny (A.C. Peterson) manages to obtain the Jersey Devil and uses it as a sideshow in a small town in Nebraska.
It gets loose and raises havoc in the woodlands of Nebraska that looked like Quebec, Canada, There is a seer named Samara (Simone-Élise Girard) pronounced like "Tomorrow." Only Lou Diamond Phillips can save the town....well part of it.This is a 2009 made for TV film.
The lethal and mythical beast the Jersey Devil is being shown as the main attraction at an eerie traveling carnival.
The monster escapes and terrorizes a small town.
It's up to stalwart sheriff Atlas (a solid and likable performance by Lou Diamond Phillips) to stop it before it's too late.
Peterson as shady carny owner Cap, Vlasta Vrana as hell and brimstone preacher Owen, Dominic Cuzzocrea as Owen's meek assistant Quinn, Dan Petronijevic as redneck yahoo Luke, Simone-Elise Girard as fetching psychic Samara, and Joe Cobden as eager deputy Rogers.
Moreover, extra props are in order for both the scary'n'nasty monster and the surprisingly good quality make-up for the grotesque carnival freaks.
The carnival comes to town and it's evil promoter, Cap(Alan C Peterson)has a new sideshow attraction, a winged creature hungry for human blood who has broken free from it's steel cage.
Sheriff Atlas(Lou Diamond Phillips) has a lot to contend with as locals begin to fall victim to the beast.
Cap is so absolutely vile he guts his own trusting servant, Quinn(Dominic Cuzzocrea)just so that he can capture the creature by using the smell of blood from the poor guy as a means to lure the monster.
Through Cab's mystic, Samara(Simone-Elise Girard), we learn as she is speaking with Atlas that the creature just may be the Jersey Devil.
Adding to Atlas' troubles is the local fire-and-brimstone priest, Father Owen(Vlasta Vrana) who, before the start of the carnival, was warning his citizens and neighbors of how this traveling freakshow would only bring horror to the town, a rallying cry of epic proportions, heaven and hell, good and evil kind of stuff.
Surprisingly well made creature feature compared to past Sci-Fi channel offerings, actually has some decent special effects in regards to the monster's presence in the film.
The filmmakers decide to shoot the creature out of focus just enough as it flies/swoops down in the background so that it won't be as glaring computer effect as we normally are used to seeing in a Sci-fi channel Saturday movie.
Owen is so blind with his own rhetoric involving the carnival of freaks' responsibility for bringing the monster in town that he encourages the locals to target them next.
Phillips slips comfortably into the small town hero role without a hitch, having starred in more than his share of B-movies, understanding this genre all too well.
Not a lot of carnage as you might expect(there could've been more body parts and torn flesh), but there's at least a tongue removal by a knife, and because of the creature's brownish gargoyle-like color(it reminded me of the beast from JEEPERS CREEPERS a bit), this allows it to integrate fairly well within the darkly autumnal surroundings.
The exciting climax has a ferris wheel toppling over thanks to Atlas trying to use whatever he can to finally rid his town of the monster, with a rather bleak resolution as many of the carnival freaks suffer devastating fates thanks to mostly Owen's doing.
The creature, setting, and story line were lifted whole cloth from F.
Read the Wilson story (it's available on a free download from the Guttenberg Project) Then re-watch the movie.