Malatesta's Carnival of Blood

Considered a lost film for almost thirty years, Malatesta’s Carnival prints had all disappeared following initial distribution in the Southern Drive-In Circuit. Interest in many of the stars, especially Hervé de Villachaize, has kept interest in the film alive.

Vena Norris (Janine Carazo) and her parents get jobs at Mr. Malatesta’s carnival running a midway games booth. But they are really part of the traveling show circuit under incredibly false pretenses. Vena’s brother disappeared one night while visiting the evil attraction, and his kinfolk are convinced they can discover what happened to him by scamming teenagers out of their allowances. What they do learn is pretty strange indeed.

Mr. Blood, who manages the rundown and derelict place, is actually a vampire, who needs the claret of tourists to stay alive. The carnival itself is manned by a family of cannibals, all of whom have been taught to eat human flesh by their deranged daddy, Mr. Bean (no, not that one). Any visitor who stumbles into the wrong place at the wrong time will find themselves in an evil underground lair where Mr. Malatesta himself does insane autopsy-like experiments and screens old horror films, much to the pale people-eaters delight. Naturally, the Norris’s become the latest example of long pig fricassee, which is a dietary staple at Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood.