Malatesta's Carnival Of Blood is a 1973 horror movie that briefly played the drive in circuit in the south when it was new. It first made it to DVD in 2003, what went out of print, and now it's available again. The story is by Werner Liepolt and the director is Christopher Speeth. It's the only film Christopher made, he died last year at age 78.
The movie is set in a crappy carnival theme park, the now gone Six Gun Territory in Willow Grove Pennsylvania. The seedy place is owned by Malatesta and run by his right hand man, Mister Blood. Mister B is secretly a vampire and Malatesta keeps cannibals in a pit. They eat the customers and staff. Some of the new staff members are there looking for their son who also disappeared from the park. They decide to fight back when the cannibals come creeping up on their trailer. Sadly, they aren't up to defending themselves and it's chompy chompy for them.
I read that Christopher Speeth was an actor who appeared in local theater and TV. His first job directing is pretty uneven, he might have developed into a better film maker but it never happened. He was also saddled with a weak script. Werner's script is not very fleshy and the dialog isn't that great. I won't be buying me a copy.
I hadn't remembered that I had seen The Ghost when I brought the Cult Action DVDr home from a recent trip to Half Price Books. It's a 1963 Italian horror film. I looked it up on my Watched Movie List, turns out I had seen it back in 2007, in one of those 50 Movie Packs I like so much. I looked at the DVD today and it's an English dubbed and pan & scan. The DVDr I bought the other day is widescreen and in Italian with English subtitles. Tucked into the front of the DVD box is a paper sleeve with another DVDr. The second disc is an English dubbed pan & scan version that looks like it might be the same print as the movie in the 50 Movie Pack. None of these versions look that good but the widescreen version is pretty piss poor. Still watchable but annoying.
The company that put the DVDr out is Cult Action and they've got a sale going on at their website, 6 for $60. Here's how they describe themselves.
Welcome, collectors! Thank you for visiting our website.
Cult Action is a film archival and transfer service specializing in rare, hard-to-find & out-of-print films from all over the globe. Whether it's action, adventure, horror, war, mondo, sleaze, exploitation, sci-fi, or just plain hard-to-find films, we're sure that we have have just what you're looking for.
Founded by true fans of these obscure genre films., Cult Action releases feature the best, most complete & uncut prints available. And catering to the serious collector, we obtain rare artwork and promotional material for our deluxe box art. The quality of our expert transfers and professionally designed box art is simply unmatched.
Our customers enjoy fast professional service, a great selection and the best value ANYWHERE!
We currently have hundreds of genre titles listed in the archive and more coming in all the time, so be sure to bookmark this site and keep a lookout for exciting new releases!
Regards, The Cult Action Team
Sounds like a bootleg house to me. Still, you never know what you might find in a place like that. I haven't looked through their list to see if there are even 6 movies I might want. They'd have to have something special, the chance I'd pay 10 smackaroonies for a movie like The Ghost are slim.
Here's my old post from 2007.
The Ghost is the first up on Side B. It's a slow movin' ghostly revenge movie. Barbara Steele plays the leading lady, who with her lover, a doctor, kills her husband, also a doctor. That takes a half hour, or a third of the movie. The evil pair spend the next 15 minutes looking for the dead husband's safe key. It's hidden somewhere, maybe in the house, maybe in the grounds, maybe in the coat the dead man was buried in. After searching the decaying dead man they find the key, but there's no money in the safe. 
Things take a turn for the melodramatic briefly, then the spookin' starts. I never found Steele, who seems very popular among the horror fans, to be that great an actress nor that stunning a beauty. I never went nuts over Sophia Loren either, just a type thing, I guess. Steele does have some eyes. They creep me out. Things go to hell for the evil couple and then there's some retribution and an ironic ending. Nice. Not a great movie but better than the average in this box.
I didn't rate it at the IMDb in 2007, so I did today, I only gave it a 5. Almost 25% of the votes were a 6 but I don't think it's quite that good. Just average. I might never watch it again and it wouldn't matter.
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