A monster roams out in the desert, one that stitches the faces of his victims into one gruesome mask. He is called Quiltface. And he's as nasty as you would expect someone who wears a mask made of dead flesh to be.
Carnage Road is the latest film from Max Cerchi, who did the fun and memorable Hellinger. While Carnage Road lacks the complex story and characters of it's predecessor, what it does provide are a few honest jolts, and a tense storyline.
With an obvious tip of the hat (if not more than a few down-right thefts) of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes, four photography majors find themselves being stalked through the desert by the afore-mentioned masked madman, slaughtered with the same systematic glee all cinematic villains possess. Again, this isn't Brazil, there isn't any deep philosophic message. It's a good old fashioned slasher film and doesn't make any claims to be anything else.
W.A.V.E. Studios veteran Dean Paul provides the movie with it's one outstanding performance. The other actors are either servicable in their roles or - in the case of the "comic relief" - tedious and annoying. Fortunately, the lesser performers are picked off rather quickly and messily. Plus you have the beautiful desert scenery to look at, in case the story seems to take a while to get going (there is a definite pacing problem during the first twenty minutes of the film, with obvious padding to make the film crawl past the 70-minute mark. You can always fast forward through the walking and get to the slaughter.) Plus, the Quiltface mask is genuinely creepy, as you can see from the still on the right (and I pulled this from the press information, so it's not like I'm giving anything away).
All in all, a quick and enjoyable effort from Cerchi and crew. A must for fans of solid slasher flicks.
Carnage Road can be ordered through B-Movie.com