Uncanny Clowns for Fallen Angels: Darren Lynn Bousman and Terrance Zdunich’s The Devil’s Carnival: Episode 1

(Because I’d rather be safe than sorry with TRIGGER WARNINGS, this post contains a brief mention of suicide and some discussion of intimate partner violence. Also, while I tried to keep them to a minimum, there are some SPOILERS for The Devil’s Carnival: Episode 1.)

Yesterday, as a present to their loyal sinners (aka fans), Darren Lynn Bousman and Terrance Zdunich released a trailer for their second episode of The Devil’s Carnival, an independent film series based around devilishly delicious retellings of Aesop’s fables that inverts our common conceptions of Hell and Heaven.

You probably already know of Darren Lynn Bousman—he’s a director of the popular Saw franchise. Terrance Zdunich has done a little bit of everything, not limited to illustrating, writing, and acting. The two previously worked together on a rock opera, Repo!: The Genetic Opera, an excellent movie that didn’t receive nearly as much publicity as it deserves but that has found a cult following, anyway. (Seriously, Repo! is my favorite movie. I can probably recite the entire thing: Erherm. “The not-too-distance future. An epidemic of organ failures… Chaos! Out of the tragedy…”—Wait! I’m writing a blog post. Sorry.) This past year, to the delight of fans like myself, Bousman and Zdunich released their second collaboration, The Devil’s Carnival: Episode 1, which they publicized themselves by doing a road tour of the movie, shown in small theaters across the country. At the Q & A with Bousman and Zdunich in my city, they said that they wanted to make going to the movies fun again. They certainly did. The event featured not only the movie but also local performing acts, audience participation, and a costume contest. (And, you know, a chance to meet and shake hands with Bousman and Zdunich themselves! In person! A friend and I left the theater squee-ing. I’m sure we weren’t the only ones.) The experience was not unlike going to a shadowcast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, except for the fact that Repo! and The Devil’s Carnival are genuinely good movies that can be enjoyed in a non-ironic way.

Of course, when I say that The Devil’s Carnival is a good movie, I think it’s a good movie that requires a certain peculiar disposition. It’s for the freaks, the geeks, the weird, and the imperfect. (Or, at least, those who proudly self-identify as any one of those things.) I’ve seen the film classified as horror, but I don’t know if I would call it that, exactly. It’s macabre. It’s dark. There’s blood. And suicide. It’s creepy. It’s morbid. It’s uncanny. It’s a little confusing. And there’s singing. Lots of singing. But it’s not the upbeat, catchy singing of popular musicals. It’s completely unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and with Hollywood recycling the same old franchises and plot lines in order to create blockbusters, the sheer novelty of The Devil’s Carnival can be, in itself, arresting. I find it disarming. The eeriness of the film followed me for a long time after I’d left the theater. What I mean is, this is a movie that, like Repo!,  challenges its audience to think, to mull over the story. It unsettles more than it satisfies, partly because it is the first in a series and so must leave its viewers wanting more. But its different-ness, its newness also demands contemplation. It turns familiar conventions on their heads and mashes together the whimsical and child-like with gore and the grotesque. Also, Lucifer, the devil, is the good guy. But he doesn’t exactly inspire the warm fuzzies that we tend to associate with “the good guys.” He’s harsh and he’s fair. I think he’s brilliant, but then, I’m a fan of devil-centric stories. Why? Because I’m a freak and a geek. I’m weird and I’m imperfect.

Despite its refreshing unusualness, The Devil’s Carnival is also very traditional. Its plotlines follow retellings of Aesop’s Fables, updated to apply to contemporary situations.  For all of its inversions, the film is essentially a morality tale. Don’t be greedy and selfish. Don’t trust others naively. Grieve, but then move on. I agree with these proverbs, but it’s the film’s portrayal of the second one that I find a bit unsettling, as the moral is applied to a teenager, Tamara, who, the audience is lead to believe, dies at the hands of her abusive boyfriend. On the one hand, the film could be read as blaming the victim—faulting Tamara for getting into a bad relationship in the first place, even though, at the start of the film, she appears to be trying to leave her abuser.

On the other hand, however, the film does treat the problem of intimate partner violence as serious, literally an issue of life and death, when it is too often dismissed not only by popular culture but also by policy makers. The Scorpion, Hell’s shadow of Tamara’s earthly amore, is not left blameless, though he also does not suffer nearly as much as Tamara does, at least not in the first episode of the series, anyway. The film also explores our culture’s perception of True Love, ultimately concluding that our ideals about love are just as dangerous and deceptive as they are sweet and coddling. I, personally, do believe that, to some extent, our culture’s perceptions of True Love probably contribute to the pressure that women feel to stay in abusive relationships, in addition to other social and psychological factors. Women are taught that we are not worthy unless we are loved, or appear to be loved, by someone else. We are also taught that a good and loving woman stands by her man, no matter what he does, even if he manipulates and hits her. We are taught that anything, even abuse, is worth True Love. None of this is true, of course, but it is perpetuated by our culture’s depictions of True Love. By challenging the concept of True Love, the film does, at least to some extent, grapple with a cultural element of intimate partner violence.

Ultimately, while the three human main characters, including Tamara, are punished for their flaws, at least part of the responsibility is thrown at the feet of God, who in the movie’s universe, is an unrealistic perfectionist, creating imperfect humans and then blaming them for their failings and barring them from Heaven. Were his creations always happy and care-free, the film suggests, God might approve of humans, but he can’t abide them as they are—flawed and surrounded by the troubles of the world. Lucifer, as the film portrays him, may be strict about his six hundred sixty-six rules, but at least he gives humans a chance to learn from their failings. He has “grace for cheap,” while Heaven offers nothing but indifference.

As I said, this is a film for the imperfect, for those who don’t fit in, and who have strange and macabre tastes in movies. In part, this cult appeal is due to the aesthetics of the movie, but I also think it has to do with the film’s depiction of Hell. In The Devil’s Carnival, Hell is for the flawed, the monstrous, and the imperfect. It’s a place where strange people—people who wouldn’t fit in Heaven and probably wouldn’t want to go there anyway—have a hope of finding their place. When I, dressed in a black corset, black gloves, and knee-high boots, went to the local showing of The Devil’s Carnival¸ I hardly stood out. There were people wearing all kinds of bizarre costumes and clothes, accented with outlandish make-up and multiple piercings and tattoos. We all looked awesome, but anywhere else, we would’ve looked freakish and probably received stares and disapproving looks. United by our love of Repo! and the work of Bousman and Zdunich, we fit right in with each other. Our difference became something to celebrate. What I like about The Devil’s Carnival, more than its delightful creepiness, is that, like a few other cult movies such as The Nightmare Before Christmas, it gives people like me a chance to get together and revel in our strangeness. Bousman and Zdunich didn’t just create a film—they’ve made an event, an experience, and a community of fans.

I have no predictions for the next episode in the series. I expect it will treat viewers to a more in-depth look at the universe that the first film established. I suspect there will be more fables. I’m quite sure that there will be more haunting songs. Whatever it brings, I’m very much looking forward to it.