Mardi Gras Massacre, 1978, 92mins

3rd Sitting:

Mardi Gras Massacre, 1978, 92mins (NTSC): Successfully prosecuted

Kevs Blog -  

Well, there we were preparing to follow up the hilarity of Zombie Creeping Flesh/Hell of the Living Dead with something that has maybe has a bit more production/artistic value, or something that properly delivered on the "nasty" part of the video nasty genre and what happens? My order of the very recently released Code Red region 0 dvd of Jack Weis's "Mardi Gras Massacre" drops through the door, throwing all previous plans to the wall.

Now, it was only just as we were sitting down in Jay's appropriately dark, dank basement to watch this dvd that my excitement about the film we were both about to see for the first time suddenly faltered; Wasn't this the fairly appalling late '70s remake/rip-off of the ground breaking genre busting 1963 proto-nasty "Blood Feast" (also on the DPP list)? Yes, it bloody was. For a few seconds my heart sank, that was until the film started and suddenly the team behind Zombie Creeping Flesh were made to look like a cross between Steven Spielberg, Orson Welles and Sam Peckinpah in their heydays and the original Blood Feast seem like Se7en. Yes, here we were again, watching somebody failing to observe the most basic of skills required to direct and edit a film - I mean, even in ZCF we didn't get to see fluffed and tripped-over lines delivered by actors and those takes left in the movie. I can only think that the production was sooooo low budget that they just couldn't afford to shoot more film on a second take (oh how easy those digital filmakers of today have it), or indeed afford to have any kind of post-synch dubbing, judging from the overall sound quality (and this is definitely not because of any low quality dvd authoring). Surprisingly the, albeit one trick, gore effects aren't bad - probably where all the money for film stock and actors went. Still, at least they hadn't had to spend any money on the story, as the "lunatic religious nut, offing women as a blood sacrifice to some obscure god" plot had been provided to them for free by Herschell Gordon Lewis some 15 years earlier.

Anyway, the result another very funny movie that had us howling in disbelief; At least half of the actors must have been friends doing it for free, or maybe just drunks pulled off of the street. Yes the movie is set during New Orleans Mardi Gras, but if you're expecting some kind of celebration of the famous city, or even just a good look at the parades, well you can forget it - they might as well have filmed a wet Easter fete on the outskirts of Luton, certainly not one for the New Orleans tourist board to get excited about..... god, I've not even mentioned the music yet... well, I'll leave that to Jay. All in all, very enjoyable for all of the wrong reasons and, despite some (and I'm being polite here) over long montage moments, it didn't drag its feet too much and there was always something to laugh at within moments of us getting concerned that it was about to get boring.

Interestingly, this film received an apparent outright ban after the DPP successfully took it down and has never seen a release on these shores cut or otherwise since the ban, yet again proving that the moral guardians of the country in the 1980s must have been at the psychedelic mushrooms if they thought that exposure to this would have any other kind of reaction than violent outbursts of laughter. The only way this film could have corrupted anybody is by encouraging writers and directors to make truly awful films and if that was the case, banning it didn't bloody work, because "Love Actually" got made. Actually, that's not fair - Mardi Gras Massacre is a thousand times better than Love Actually and a thousand times funnier - maybe Richard Curtis should take note.

Right, lets do something proper nasty next time, I'm not sure how much more my sides can take...

Jays Blog


Kev has covered it pretty much and there is not a lot I can add - I would like to just mention a few things I found most striking about this film. Firstly the music.....sweet jesus the music!!!! So much of it and so loud. What were they thinking? I can only imagine that after watching back the initial edit of badly lit scene after badly lit scene (that also suffered from some sort of terminal sound quality issue when anyone was trying to speak any dialogue) someone said "what this film needs is a low quality disco soundtrack over almost the entire thing". Someone else then probably said "what just quiet and subtle in the background?" to which the reply was "no, it should be really loud and intrusive".


To be fair the music was the least of the 'crapyness' issues this film had - try a half baked, boring, pointless love story between a drunk hooker and a mildly misogynistic cop. Or editing so poor the same room and almost exact shot would be cut into another almost identical shot but in a slightly different angle (as if they has run out of film one day, gone back in the next day with a sort of 'I think the camera was about here wasn't it? ' approach to finish the scene). Or the oddly tiny desk the 2 cops had to share....like a child's school desk. Or the fact the actor playing the killer waited until he had his 'victims' tied up before giving the actress in question a few extra gropes for good luck. Or the fact he stabbed them in their 'foot of evil'.......I could go on, really I could but I think you get the general idea. 


Rubbish, pointless, badly acted, badly directed, terrible editing......flipping brilliant!!!

3 down, 69 to go....