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Diego Hallivis is known for Curvature (2017), American Carnage (2022) and Game Time (2011).
- Producer, Director, Additional Crew
- Diego Hallivis
Jul 15, 2022 · American Carnage co-writers Julio and Diego Hallivis (who directed) discuss their social horror-thriller, balancing scares with comedy, and more.
- Grant Hermanns
Feb 13, 2019 · Owen Morawitz interviews director Diego Hallivis about his sci-fi flick 'Curvature', as well as Mexican directors, independent film-making, and brotherhood.
Jul 15, 2022 · American Carnage: Directed by Diego Hallivis. With Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Jenna Ortega, Allen Maldonado, Yumarie Morales. After a governor issues an executive order to arrest the children of undocumented immigrants, the newly detained youth are offered an opportunity to have their charges dropped by volunteering to provide care to the elderly.
- (4.3K)
- Action, Comedy, Horror
- Diego Hallivis
- 2022-07-15
- The American dream will eat you alive.
- Verdict
By Matt Donato
Posted: Jul 15, 2022 2:00 pm
American Carnage is in theaters and available on demand on July 15, 2022.
Diego Hallivis’ American Carnage gets its name from a deplorable Donald Trump quote uttered during his 16-minute inauguration speech in which he used "American Carnage" to describe everything that wasn't his ideal America: the one where wealthy white socialites can close borders to "outsiders," breed putrid misogyny, and uphold the systemic racism instituted by our forefathers. I say this to set the mood of Diego and Julio Hallivis' screenplay, which carries momentum from Jordan Peele's Get Out into problems surrounding ICE raids and xenophobia. Their main character flaunts bedroom posters of Peele's Us and Joe Cornish's Attack the Block to convey the film's themes early. That rage against rusted American ideal machines powers this scrappy-with-attitude horror flick about what it feels like to have your lives dictated by crooked government agendas.
Swirl Get Out with The Forever Purge, and that's close to describing American Carnage at its basest structure. Children of immigrants like JP (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.), Camila (Jenna Ortega), and Big Mac (Allen Maldonado) are shoved in cages, then offered a choice — face deportation or work a few months as elder care aids for the E.A.T.U. (Elderly American Tolerance Understanding) program under creator Eddie (Eric Dane). They all pick reading to Alzheimer's patients to protect their families, but something isn't right. The Hallivis brothers embrace freakish genre extremes as JP sees more and more corruption at the Owl Cove elderly facility, channeling the fantastical racism of something like Gigi Saul Guerrero's red, white, and bruised Culture Shock.
Maybe it's strange to compliment American Carnage as "fun," because its core frustrations in America's anti-immigration issues are appropriately disheartening — but there's this spunky protestor's vibe to it all. It's enraging, yet Diego and Julio understand that humor distills these heavily political statements down to much more palatable mediums for audiences. Allen Maldonado is hilarious as "Big Mac," nicknamed because he likes "big women," since he's the smartass of the group with street intelligence who keeps reacting to incarceration horrors with vocal emphasis. Jenna Ortega gets her jabs in as a punkish rebel who delights with her no-shits-given shell, while Jorge Lendeborg Jr. does more of the straight-man schtick whose disbelief is his own source of humor. Their characters' worlds crumble like Pompeii, yet we're still permitted to chuckle amidst their immediate danger.
American Carnage isn't afraid to ruffle feathers but gets bogged down in its gigantic reaches when trying to both entertain genre audiences and strike fear into legislative oppressors. It's geared more for midnight audiences who aren't as considerate about shown seams, or won't scoff at thematic metaphors that are beyond on the nose. The Hallivis b...
- Matt Donato
Feb 26, 2018 · With Curvature out now in theaters and on VOD platforms from Screen Media, we caught up with director Diego Hallivis for a new Q&A feature to discuss working with Hamilton, making a movie where time travel enhances the characters as much as the plot, and two different genre movies he has in the works.
#AmericanCarnage #JennaOrtega #AllenMaldonadoWriter & Director Diego Hallivis shares with Jana N Nagase the inspiration for his new film AMERICAN CARNAGE, th...
