Duke, the killer carousel unicorn (voiced by Steve Rimpici) returns in this uneven, but sporadically hilarious sequel. This time out, he learns he has a half-human son named Robbie (B. Barnabei) that he never knew about. Duke tries to put killing behind him in order to make up for lost time with his son, unaware that the Nazis who created him during WWII are hunting him. When they learn Duke has a son, they kidnap Robbie to ensure his cooperation. Of course, that just makes Duke even madder, and he goes after the Hitler-loving bastards.
The addition of Nazi villains seems a little desperate. It’s like the filmmakers are trying to do the Don’t Breathe 2 thing where they take the series’ bad guy (or in this case, unicorn) and make him a de facto hero by pitting him against a more sinister evil. I guess it might’ve worked had the Nazis not been so overly cartoonish. They make the Nazis in Hogan’s Heroes look like the Nazis in Schindler’s List by comparison. I mean the sight of a talking (and killing) carousel unicorn is already WTF enough. We really didn’t need a bunch of comic relief Nazi villains constantly mugging and shit.
Fortunately, the rest of the film is just as funny as the original. The father/son bonding scenes with Duke and Robbie hit the sweet spot between absurdist humor and Z horror moviemaking at its finest. These scenes almost play like a surreal version of an After School Special. If there was more of this sublime silliness throughout the rest of the picture, it might’ve been a classic. As it is, it falls just short of the inspired zaniness of the original. Even if CarousHELL the 2nd was a bit spotty in places, I am still anxiously waiting to see Duke’s next go-round.
AKA: CarousHELL 2.
Totally fair review and glad you liked a good chunk of it!
ReplyDeleteBut just to be clear, the backstory of Duke being a victim of Nazis and then fighting the exact same Nazis was on paper before we ever started shooting CarousHELL 1. It was definitely never a later choice just to make Duke a hero, as far as we were concerned he was already the protagonist/hero in the first film. He just hurt the wrong people out of confusion.
If we get to make the 3rd film, the story will be about a good person needing to face direct consequences of their negative actions!
Thanks for stopping by, Steve. I can't wait for part three. I hope we get more Robby!
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