Bousman LAUNCHES The Devil’s Carnival FILM TOUR How do you fight pirates? With strippers and sword-swallowers, of course. In a move
designed in part to thwart internet movie piracy, the creative team behind 2008’s Repo! The Genetic Opera are hitting the road with The Devil’s Carnival, a raucous touring show that combines film, music, audience participation and live performances by burlesque dancers, contortionists and other carnie mainstays. The show kicks off this month in Hollywood and will hit a number of US and Canadian cities before winding down in May. Though it’s being called a sequel to Repo!, Carnival actually bears no thematic or
narrative connection to the bloody rock opera. “The only connection is the insane team that worked on it and the same kind of ‘fuck you’ attitude,” says Darren Lynn Bousman, who directed both films. “It’s a musical, obviously, and Repo! was a musical as well. But it’s a completely different story. We have most of the Repo! cast returning, from Paul Sorvino to Alexa Vega to Bill Moseley to [Nivek] Ogre, but they play different char- acters and it takes place in an entirely new and different world, which is Hell.” Besides the long list of Repo! veterans, The Devil’s Carnival also features dark-cabaret
darling Emilie Autumn, Boondocks Saints star Sean Patrick Flanery and metal act Slip- knot’s Shawn Crahan. The plot centres on the eponymous show, run by Ol’ Scratch himself, which characters are doomed to join if they don’t earn redemption for whatever sins landed them in Hell to begin with. Bous- man describes the hour-long film as dark and macabre, calling it “Tales from the Crypt meets the anti-Glee.” Though work on The Devil’s Carnival
began in earnest only about nine months ago, the idea was born soon after Repo! was re- leased. Though it earned scathing reviews and bombed in its two-city, blink-and-you- missed-it release, Repo! found an exuberant afterlife when Bousman and writer/star Ter- rance Zdunich decided to take it on the road themselves. The pair essentially drove a print across the US, renting theatres and showing the movie. “Fans embraced it,” Bousman explains.
“We sold out every single show that we did, with no publicity and no promotion. We were just a couple of dudes on Myspace, and we sold out every single screening. It was the most rewarding experience I’d ever had, and almost immediately we started looking to do it again.” As usual with indie filmmaking, the prob-
lem was funding. The duo had approximately $12 million at their disposal when they made Repo!, but no one was lining up to write cheques when it was time to finance
The makers of Repo! The Genetic Opera return with The Devil’s Carnival.
Carnival. Bousman found one investor, whose funds the director matched out of his own pocket. The result is a low-budget labour of love that will hopefully accomplish two things. “Number one, it’s a cleansing of our souls,” Bousman says. “It’s something that we
want to do, where we’re not having to adhere to what people want us to do or not do. Number two, we wanted to make this whole event an experience. Going to the movies used to be an experience, but now it’s turned into a bunch of douchebags talking on their cellphones the entire time. I remember when I saw Rocky the first time – it was awesome. That’s what we want; we want to make it an experience that you can share with like-minded people.” And it’s an experience that can’t be downloaded, Bousman adds. Since The Devil’s
Carnival’s live aspects – audience participation, sing-alongs, Q&As, costume contests, carnival-style performances and door prizes – are as crucial to the road show as the movie itself, the filmmaker hopes to trump the online film piracy having an impact on movie attendance. Bousman admits that The Devil’s Carnival is a risky venture, but he hopes audiences
will respond with enough enthusiasm to do it all over again. “My ultimate goal is for this to be a series,” he says. “We already have a couple more
written, and we have a ‘bible’ for what would be the first season. It’s a stick of dynamite. It could explode, or it could fizzle out. Obviously, we think it’s going to explode – that’s why we’re doing it – but you never know.” A complete list of tour dates and ticket information is available at thedevilscarnival.com.