BA_Harrison Those who claim that this is director Andy Milligan's best movie aren't really saying much: it's still a terrible film, just not quite as bad as the rest of his bilge.A cut-rate Amityville-style haunted house story, Carnage opens with the double suicide of newlyweds Susan and Mark Webb (Deeann Veeder and Chris Georges). Three years later and the Webb's house is bought by young married couple Jonathan and Carol Henderson (Michael Chiodo and Leslie Den Dooven) who are clearly unperturbed by the incessant barking of a neighbour's dog.However, after much unexplained spooky shenanigans, mysterious deaths, and constant yapping from the mutt next door, Susan and Mark eventually come to the conclusion that buying the house was a bad idea. Getting a priest round to their gaff doesn't stop the supernatural occurrences, but at least the dog shuts up for a while.With lousy acting from all involved, and special effects limited to objects being moved by wires (some of which are clearly visible) and a fair amount of hokey gore (including a really laughable disembowelment, a meat cleaver in the head and a blood-free decapitation), this woeful ghost flick is strictly for fans of really bad movies.The film ends with the Henderson's joining their other-worldly housemates by also committing suicide, after which, that bloody dog starts barking again.

trashgang I guess that I don't have to introduce Andy Milligan. He's the king of the drive-in's and schlockfests. This flick is one of his later attempts but is still an ultra low budget. It contains wooden acting and bad editing. Almost none of the actors made it into another film, do I have to say more. And for a flick from 1984 it's really slow, made me think I was watching a sixties exploitation. The effects used, if you can say that, are really no-budget effects. Windows closing itself, things dropping or moving, disappearing tools, you know, wired stuff. You can easily see that there wasn't money for extra lights. The just used the light on the camera. If you still don't know what I mean just watch after 30 minutes how a knife goes into a hand, OMG. It's a typical Milligan flick but in some ways it's watchable. But still you will have big laugh, just take a look at the ghost appearing, all done by editing like they did with the flicks from the 30's! It's all done so cheap. Suddenly, by editing, someone sees a ghost in a mirror, but you can easily see that she stands in the room. Here and there it's okay, like the throat slicing and the slaughtering of the burglars but overall, it's a Milligan schlock. Just take it as it is.

Keith DeWeese I've seen a lot of Andy Milligan movies, and I think this is one of his most accomplished and coherent. Sure it's a lot like other haunted house films of the early 80s, but there have been haunted house films since the dawn of cinema, and there's enough oddness--not typical Milligan oddness but interesting oddness--that I found it compelling enough to stick with it to the predictable end. As for the acting, not bad for a Milligan film, and I actually found the characters likable, though I missed some of Milligan's long-time collaborators. For being made for 35K, this is certainly one of Andy's better looking films, too. Then there are those moments of hysteria that only Milligan could muster. I give the guy a lot of credit: He had a certain skewed vision that he kept training a camera on for quite a long time. Not for everyone, but then Staten Island is an acquired taste on so many levels. On a Milligan scale of 1-10, definitely a 6.

marymorrissey I was on amazon.com and read about some bio of the director that is supposed to be quite fascinating and can be bought for .01 evidently he was important to starting off Broadway as he made films for 42nd street theatres. this was last night then I found this with another movie on one DVD at the 99 cents only store, so I knew I was fated to watch.this movie was cute, gets a little dull after awhile but . . I did quite like the ending!it's important to give 10 lines of text. Well, it should have been the husband shown in the opening scene who was eventually to be nude and without clothing in the raw as it were.-------------it's funny how the film boldly commits errors but then parts of it are very competently shot, when the people are looking around in the house of doom.---------in the soundtrack there is a loop of a barking dog that is played 3 times in succession, then there is a variation like a little bit of it is cut out and this "big phrase" ends by starting again. This cycle repeats maybe 8-10 times when employed, becoming a sort of a pure vibration a kind of incantation of mood, "ARF ARF ARF! ARF!! (pause) ARF!! (pause) ARF!! (pause)" rather like morse code are this particular hounds utterances. The filmmakers get away with it partly cause dogs are often quite repetitive in their barking. there almost seems to be dog sentence structure, from the sound of it, and I couldn't help wondering if it might be possible that dogs borrow their "cadences" from humans. after all it's usually humans they are barking at. But only in the most lassie like extremities, really, maybe only on TV, in face, do dogs use barking as a means of communication with their masters, it's whining that's commonly done. What I'm saying is, if dogs were imitating conversation then maybe they'd be liable to join into human conversations by barking along, but this doesn't happen. anyway I was glad to have watched the movie for putting my mind onto this subject of the structure, grammar, or just rhythm of dog barking.