The Devil's Carnival with Emilie Autumn

I just watched The Devil's Carnival (56 minutes) with Emilie Autumn (I did a blog on her a while back).

I really wanted to like it, I really did, and I did like it, a bit; maybe even, two bits, but not six bits, or a dollar.

It had some of my favorite actors in it, Dayton Callie, from among other things has  now been in several of my favorite shows, Deadwood (loved that show), John From Cincinnati, and my current favorite, Sons of Anarchy; Sean Patrick Flannery famous for Boondock Saints and Boondock Saints - All Saints Day (also, love those flicks); Bill Mosely, famous for so many horror films including the Night of the Living Dead remake (and the upcoming, Night of the Living Dead: Origins 3D), and House of 1000 Corpses (I ran into Bill, Tom Savini and Sid Haig at ZomBcon II in Seattle (SeaTac) where at one point, in a seminal scene I have to tell you, they were being "blessed" by a "Zombie Jesus" at the bar, amazing scene....).

Original Music by Saar Hendelman and Terrance Zdunich of Repo! The Genetic Opera (the 10 minute version and the 98 minute version).

I haven't seen "Repo!" but I read that it was good. TDC had a lot of promise and I wanted to like it. Mostly I did like it. But I was having trouble with several things during the film. One was the audio production, it left much to be desired in places and was inconsistent in quality. The other main problem I had was the music and lyrics. It came off to me at least, as pretty pedestrian and somewhat amateurish. Consider this, they had Emily Autumn on set and they didn't use her to her full potential? They did use some of her very good violin skills and I'll give them credit for that.

See also the Blog, Wrestling with Pop Culture

Emily's main song just didn't work for me. After seeing many of her songs she performs on her on stage show, this just didn't live up to the quality she usually offers. Her performance was good as always, but the song and lyrics just didn't give her that much to work with. The song was "competent" but not great.

I'd love to have seen what she would have turned out if the filmmakers had told her to go for it and supply her own songs for the entire production; something that is long overdue. Had they then gotten a much better audio engineer and had the director been more on top of things, this could have been an incredible little film and not just an interesting, and merely good one.

I'm divided on this film. I liked about half of it, I appreciated what they were trying to do and half failed at. Half of the songs were likeable, but I'd have to say that in the end, they missed the mark on this. Should you watch it? Absolutely. Because of what it was trying to achieve if nothing else.

A film should leave you wanting more. But after it is over, not during, and afterward I was left wanting more quality in the songs and skill in the audio production and director.

All that being said, it is still an interesting piece.