The Beasts' Carnival
The Beasts' Carnival
| 03 December 1980 (USA)
The Beasts' Carnival Trailers

A hit man working for the Yakuza double crosses his employers and flees with a cache of diamonds from the latest heist. Injured and hiding in the mountain regions of Spain, with Japanese assassins in hot pursuit, he takes refuge in the home of a local doctor and his two daughters who nurse him back to health and hide him from his pursuers, taking drastic and murderous measures to protect him... for they have plans of their own in store for their current guest.

Reviews
ma-cortes

This time Naschy is turned into a criminal mercenary who deceives ,steals and kills and goes on a murderous rampage until to terminate in the ¨Texas massacre house¨. The story starts in Japan on the lake Hakone near mount Fujiyama . Bruno Rivera (Paul Naschy) a tough mercenary is hired by an organization of fanatic idealists to carry out a hold-up on a valuable stash of diamonds. Bruno double-crosses his pregnant Japanese girlfriend and the criminal group and returns Spain. There he is located , taking place a chase and exciting pursuit nearly an old monastery . Being wounded , he is healed by the medic Simon (Lautaro Murua) and his daughters Alicia (Azuzena Hernandez)and Monica (Silvia Aguilar) . He takes shelter in their mansion but his former love interest Mieko (Eiko Nagashina) swears vengeance and is relentlessly looking for Bruno . Finally Bruno decides to escape until a creepy and surprising finale .The picture is full of perverse images , sadism , morbidness and some nudism .It packs a crossover between noir cinema , gangsters genre and horror . Also displays acceptable photography , and Nazi iconography as usual in Naschy films. The film is narrated by means of flashbacks with Bruno's nightmares , developing Japan events and actual deeds when Naschy lives in the house of the rare family. The pig scenes of Ridley Scott's ¨Hannibal¨ seem to be taken from this film .Jacinto Molina ,under pseudonym Paul Naschy turns out to be the continental Europe's biggest horror with his classic character , the unforgettable Waldemar Daninsky and frightening to viewer. He played as El Hombre Lobo for the umpteenth time . Jacinto Molina Aka Paul Naschy ,who recently passed away, was actor,screenwriter and director of various film about the personage based on fictitious character, the Polish count Waldemar Daninsky. The first film about Waldemar was ¨The mark of the Wolfman (1967)¨ by Enrique Eguiluz , after that ¨Night of Walpurgis¨, ¨Fury of the Wolfman¨ , ¨Doctor Jekill and the Wolfman¨ ,¨The return of the Walpurgis¨, ¨Howl of the devil¨, ¨The beast and the magic sword(1982)¨ that is filmed in Japan and finally ¨Licantropo(1998). After ¨The craving¨ it was such a box office disaster that Jacinto was bankrupt. He was forced to turn to Japan for making artist documentaries, as he filmed ' Madrid Royal Palace and Museum of Prado' and he gets financing from Japanese producers for ¨The human beasts¨, the first co-production Spanish-Japan and followed ¨The beast and the magic sword¨. Both of them are lavishly produced for the Paul Naschy standards. As the Atrezzo and gowns were well manufactured and exterior shot on both countries .It's a B series entertainment with abundant sensationalistic scenes and a Naif style.The movie has a bit of ridiculous gore with loads of blood similar to tomato and is occasionally an engaging horror movie full of slashing, beheading, and several other things. This time Paul Nashy/Jacinto Molina exhibits little breast but he was a weightlifting champion . Pretty slow going and some flaws and gaps , but hang in there for the incredible and unexpected ending . In the picture appears habitual secondaries from Naschy films as Luis Ciges , Pepe Ruiz , Rafael Hernadez and other known supporting cast as Tito Garcia and Ricardo Palacios .Good cinematography by Alejandro Ulloa (Horror express and The return of the Wolfman )is accompanied by a correct remastering and filmed in Japan , Madrid , Valley of Lozoya and surroundings . The motion picture is professionally directed and played by Jacinto Molina , a slick craftsman and mediocre actor.The flick will appeal to Paul Naschy fans and terror genre enthusiasts. Rating : 6, passable and entertaining.

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Witchfinder General 666

Even though among the lesser-known films of the great late Spanish Horror/Cult icon Paul Naschy, "El Carnaval De Las Bestias" aka. "Human Beasts" (1980) is an outrageously entertaining slice of European Exploitation cinema and a film that none of my fellow Naschy-fans can afford to miss. The multi-talented Paul Naschy scripted many of the film he starred in, and also directed some - in the case of this film, he served as writer, director and leading man. A Spanish/Japanese co-production, the film starts out as a hard-boiled crime flick only to transform into surreal Horror in the second half.Naschy plays Bruno Rivera, a hit-man, who gets hired by a Japanese criminal organization (the sister of the organization's head being in love with Bruno) in order to carry out a spectacular diamond heist. After murdering a few people during the heist, Bruno betrays his associates including his girlfriend Mieko (Eiko Nagashima) and flees with all the diamonds. After getting wounded by his double-crossed partners, Bruno gets rescued by a family (a doctor who lives with his two sexy daughters and a sexy black maid) and is taken care of in their beautiful and eerie mansion. Of course, both of the hot daughters immediately have a crush on Bruno. However, the house of the good doctor and his daughters seems to bear a secret or two, and may not be the safest hideout in the world after all...Admittedly, the film is not the most logical thing ever, and bears a few inconsistencies (a crime organization that is against unnecessary violence?... come on!), and the flashbacks into Bruno's and Meiko's past are cheesy as hell... but these tiny complaints do in no way lessen the film's incredible entertainment factor. The film is gory, very macabre, and politically incorrect as hell (the political incorrectness culminates in a scene in which the African maid moans with pleasure while having her behind whipped by her 'master', the doctor), so it should appeal to all lovers of sleazy Euro-Exploitation. There is a lot of sleaze, but, for Naschy-flick standards, there is actually quite little nudity from the gorgeous female cast. Some of the gore-scenes are pretty intense, including a scene in which a poor fellow is devoured by pigs while still alive, several brutal stabbings, and a female gangster being blown up with a grenade. "Human Beasts" includes exploitative gore, lots of action, creepy Horror, as well as silly but funny humor and corny fart-jokes. Naschy is, of course, great as always; the man truly was an icon and his presence alone made any film worth watching, in my opinion. While most of his films can hardly be considered masterpieces, they all have a specific inimitable charm that can only be found in Naschy flicks; in my humble opinion, cinema does not get more entertaining than it is the case with many of the films starring the Spanish Horror deity who passed away last year. Hombre Lobo, you truly were an icon and will always live on through your films!

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BloodTheTelepathicDog

The incomparable Paul Naschy, horror film icon of Spain, lends his talents to this entertaining if not scattershot film. What begins as an action flick ends up a horror story. All I can say is just sit back and enjoy the ride.Paul Naschy plays a cold-hearted hit-man hired by some shady Japanese diamond hunters (one of which is his flame who is carrying his child) to swipe a cache of diamonds from a Belgian businessman. When the deed is done, the allure of the diamonds is too tempting for Paul to dismiss so he kills his Japanese cohorts. His girlfriend, whose brother Paul killed, vows revenge and chases Paul through the forest, shooting him up and leaving him for dead. However, Paul is found by an egghead with two horny daughters and brought to his estate to recuperate.At the estate, the two daughters, Silvia Aguilar and Azucena Hernandez, fight for Paul in his weakened state, with the busty Silvia Aguilar determined not to lose out to the sweet and prim Azucena. But things get hairy for Mr. Naschy who begins to see the ghost of the daughter's long dead mother on the estate grounds. Couple this with the Japanese lass looking to finish the job of killing Paul and he gets pulled from two sides.STORY: $$ (The story goes a number of ways and doesn't fully satisfy. The script builds up a fight for Paul between the daughters but Silvia, whose character seems assertive and volatile, simply lets Azucena win in the Paul Naschy sweepstakes without putting up a fight. Personally, I would have preferred the ghostly apparition story to the revenge seeking of the Japanese woman)VIOLENCE: $$$ (You get gunplay, a blown-up babe and pigs eating some poor schmuck alive. Gore hounds will not be letdown with this Naschy flick).ACTING: $$$ (Paul Naschy, as always, is fun to watch but he does spend a bit too much time in bed recovering from his wounds. Starring with him again are the luscious Silvia Aguilar and the beautiful Azucena Hernandez, who teamed with Mr. Naschy in the little gem "The Craving." Both girls do a fine job).NUDITY: $$$ (You get very brief glimpses of both Aguilar and Hernandez but they are strategically placed, keeping the naught bits covered. Full nudity is supplied by the two lesser appealing actresses: the Japanese woman chasing Paul and the African maid that works for Silvia and Azucena).

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Michael_Elliott

Human Beasts (1980) BOMB (out of 4) Bruno Rivera (Paul Naschy) is a hit-man working for the Yakuza. He sets up a major robbery but after stealing the jewels he decides to keep them. After being wounded he is discovered by a kind doctor and his daughters but soon he realizes this isn't a good thing.I said "soon he realizes..." but let me change that. In the final seconds of the movie he realizes that they aren't what they seemed. When NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF bombed at the box office, horror star Naschy had to travel to Japan for financing and that resulted in two movies. This one here and THE BEAST AND THE MAGIC SWORD would follow. I'm really not sure what they were trying to do with HUMAN BEASTS but there's no question that it's the worst film in Naschy's career and a truly torturous thing to try and get through.What's so shocking about HUMAN BEASTS is how it really doesn't fit into any genre. It's partially horror but not really. It's partially a Yakuza movie but not really. It has some mystery elements but it's not really a mystery. This is a film that really doesn't belong to any genre and for the life of me I can't see what made anyone want to give money to this picture. I mean, if Naschy as a werewolf had just bombed were there really going to be anyone wanting to watch this thing? I've read reviews from people calling this an unsettling nightmare and a creepy picture but I don't see it. In fact, the movie is downright boring right from the start and it just drags to the point where you wish you were the one being targeted. The performances aren't the worst that you'll ever see but they're still not great enough to keep you into the picture. The gore is minimum and in reality there's just nothing here. It's a flat, boring and drawn-out picture that just doesn't work at all.

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