The sequel to Day of the Ax is a weird, twisted little flick that starts off with some young women chained up in a country shack; they have their shirts torn off and are killed by a roaring guy in a burlap mask. This sets the tone for a movie that’s basically about women getting chained up and killed, with variations on the tortures they go through first and whether the killers roar, cackle, gibber, or drool. All this, and a subplot involving demon babies!

I haven’t seen Day of the Ax, but given that the plot of House of Carnage is not overly involved, I expect that it can be enjoyed well enough on its own. There is a plot, to be sure, but I’ll be darned if I could figure out where it really goes or what to make of it.

Flashbacks and simulated broadcasts combine to give the viewer a fuzzy picture of the events thus far surrounding the sadistic, insane Sorg family, interspersed with lengthy scenes of screaming young women and their hysterical torturers. If you’re hungry for strong narrative direction, keep looking; but if you want blood, boobs, and crazed mallet-wielding maniacs, this is your recipe -- with a dash of cannibalism and necrophilia thrown in for seasoning.

While clearly inspired by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, there is also a disturbing, strangely amusing hint of frivolity to much of House of Carnage. For example, one psychopath doesn’t just cut off a woman’s foot; he then dances with it in front of her face, singing a mocking little song. The cast is enthusiastic (if often behaving a bit aimlessly), and I got the sense that it was probably great fun working on this movie. An improvisational air marked much of the movie, in some cases working quite well (some of the dialogue) and in other cases just seeming silly (some of the torture/killing sequences, which dragged at times). The film effects and editing are artistic and interesting (odd POV shots, warped images, etc.), but again, some scenes just go on too long.

A couple of standout performances I must mention: Danielle Donahue, as the heroine, convincingly exhibited a range of fear, defiance, anger, pain, and weariness; her acting style carried her beyond the standard B-movie victim. Written into her character was a certain resourcefulness and strength that I found refreshing for this type of flick, and Donahue pulled it off wonderfully. Also impressive was Darla Enlow as the deranged matriarch of the killers’ family. Her intense, realistic performance in scenes of her police interrogation outdid that of Leslie Easterbrook in her nearly identical role in The Devil’s Rejects. In addition, genre fans will welcome an appearance by the majestic hottie Syn DeVil.

The special effects are especially good. Auteur Ryan Cavalline and effects guy Jason Senior have done an excellent job of working within what must’ve been a minuscule budget to produce some convincingly nasty stuff, mostly along the lines of blood and a few odd body parts. There was some very good photography as well (by Cavalline himself along with Darla Enlow).

Other Thoughts
There is a recurring element of the professional figures being difficult to take seriously. A pretentious, pipe-smoking psychiatric counselor looks like an ex-hippie and changes his accent a couple of times. A self-important PhD and author of the book “Day of the Ax” (referencing this movie’s prequel) redundantly mixes his idioms (“You might say she doesn’t have all the marbles upstairs, if you know what I mean”). A police officer is ineffective and easily flustered, and a news reporter can hardly contain her smile while describing gruesome events. How much of this was deliberate I couldn’t say, but the effect was that, from very early on, the only characters I could really take seriously were the heroine and the victims. For me, besides being amusing, this element created the appropriate sense that there was no real safety anywhere.

Sometimes silly, sometimes pointless, but always kooky and plenty bloody, House of Carnage is easily more enjoyable than the last couple of Friday the 13th sequels that I’ve seen (to draw another masked-killer comparison). I recommend it to fans of both exploitation and slasher flicks, especially of the low-budget variety.