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- 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
Jun 1, 2022 · Saban has revealed the official trailer for American Carnage, an indie thriller made by the Hallivis Brothers. They last made this slick sci-fi indie film about time travel Curvature a few years...
Aug 5, 2016 · Created by brothers Julio and Diego Hallivis, the 20-minute horror follows The Joker and Harley Quinn—both characters who also appear in David Ayer's Suicide Squad—as they torture an asylum psychotherapist and ask a live-stream audience to vote on his final judgement.
- Daron James
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Jul 14, 2022 · The Hallivis Brothers craft a mystery that’s insidious and intriguing, while Unax Mendia’s cinematography turns the sterile halls of the facility into a prison from which there is no escape.
- Leigh Monson
Jul 19, 2022 · Directed by Diego Hallivis with a script by Hallivis and his brother Julio, American Carnage takes place after an unspecified state’s governor enacts an extreme enforcement of immigration law...
Jun 1, 2022 · Collider is excited to premiere an exclusive trailer and poster for the Hallivis Brothers' upcoming film, American Carnage, starring Jenna Ortega.
