Crazy Crazy Carousel Rides: Halloween Park (2023)

Halloween Park (Karusell) (Sweden, 2023) (AKA "Carousel")
Rating: ***

Starring: Wilma Lidén, Omar Rudberg, Amanda Lindh

It was one Halloween night when Fiona Wilma Lidén) tagged along her weird friend Petra (Amanda Nilsson) to a costume party for a fun time, only for it all to go horribly wrong. Like 'Petra wigging out, getting harassed by partygoers and then later found dead in the morning' kind of wrong.

Exactly a year later, it'll be another Halloween night when the past catches up to Fiona, who now works at Gothenburg's Liseberg amusement park, as she's instructed to spend the night shift accompanying a small VIP group as they enjoy the place all to themselves, from the bumper cars to the roller coaster. The guests, much to Fiona's uneasiness, turns out to be her former friends who were all present during that fiasco with Petra, most of who are upset at her now for leaving the group and blaming them for the girl's demise. Resentfully, Fiona does her best to work with the gang all the while keeping the peace and enforcing park rules, even rekindling some sparks with her old crush, Dante (Omar Rudberg), who's currently dating the group queen bee Jenny (Amanda Lindh). 

It's literally fun and game until the power suddenly goes out for the park, trapping everyone inside, and someone wearing dead Petra's Halloween mask (plus pig-tails!) starts thinning down the group one murder at a time. With a killer hellbent on ending them all, Fiona and the gang have no choice but to stick together to try surviving the night and get out alive... 

Halloween Park (2023) is, frankly, everything you'd expect from a basic slasher film; it opens with a character dying, it skips ahead some time later and those who were somewhat connected with the tragedy starts to get snuffed out by someone who is clearly doing it out of revenge. The classic set-up. Nothing is added here, not even a few additional layers of depth for its characters to up the stakes and engagement, or a bit of creativity towards who's who behind the mask. It's all a familiar walk in the park and, frankly, I do see this as an issue for horror fans who were expecting a tad more pizzazz for their bodycounting kicks. Yet, still, if you're not in a demanding streak and doesn't overly mind predictability, then this movie's 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' direction and plotting might do well for you.

Once the slayings begin, Halloween Park (2023) utilizes all it could with the isolated theme park settings, using empty haunt houses and merry-go-rounds as potential prowling spots between the killer and the teens in a macabre game of hide-and-seek. While the kills themselves are not overly gruesome, they mostly done away in fun set-pieces, a decent bunch of them involving roller coasters like one poor fella who gets axed while riding one, forcing their friends to watch in horror as they're unable to do anything to help seeing they're locked in their seats. The massacre's emphasis is clearly more on splash and splatter than vile viscera, and seeing the resulting bodycount, I say it done the assignment suitably enough for its thrills. With their mechanic get-up and broken doll mask combo, the simplistic design of the killer also adds a few good points. 

Not particularly exciting, but an alright holiday slasher offering. 

Bodycount:

1 female seen dead

1 male hacked on the chest with an axe

1 female had her wrist repeatedly slice open with a box cutter, hacked with an axe

1 male decapitated with an axe

1 male had his throat cut with a knife

1 male falls to his death

Total: 6