The Carnage Collection (2016)

_The Carnage Collection_

The Ferreira brothers are madmen (and also possibly geniuses!!) I had the privilege to see the full collection in all of its big-screen glory at the Maine Underground Film Festival, and it didn’t disappoint.

Bob and Derek Ferreira have created an incredible horror universe. From teleporting-knife-wielding-killer-animatronic Santas to demonic entities selling weed, from kidnapped lovers to slasher clowns, _The Carnage Collection_ features a beautiful display of equal parts surreal-horror-comedy and utter darkness.

We begin and end with very neatly tied together opening/closing bookend scenes of the devil selling an unsuspecting homeowner the collection and equipment to watch. In between, we dive into nine individual entries that had the entire theater in hysterics. One minute we were all dying with laughter, the next minute the whole house was dead silent with tense anticipation.

The best example of these themes and of what the Ferreira brothers have created is one of the final short stories: _Stuff_. We follow a seemingly wholesome and religious young lady (with a stellar performance from Bob’s wife, Felisia Grimm) as she goes about her day with her collection of stuffed animals. We quickly start to see this might be an unhealthy obsession. She then acquires a new stuffed animal, and this one talks to her. It talks her right into an abyss of violent and erotic madness that ends with roofies, murder, and suicide. The audience in the theater laughed, screamed, and watched with bated breath as _Stuff_ unfolded.

What’s really cool is the world-building these guys do. They did not have to show us she acquired the stuffed animal from her late grandmother’s estate after it had been picked clean by other family members, but doing so provided intriguing details that flushed out the character’s background in a really creative way.

It was really fun to watch this in the theater with a group of people and if you ever get the chance to watch _The Carnage Collection_ from Bob and Derek Ferreira, strap in for a wild ride.

4/5