User reviews

I love the Renaissance of Swedish horror, I really do. The problem is that every movie from the past years have been done in a similar way before.

Also, the killer reveals never work. This one could be seen after the first ten minutes of the film. Even the twist they tried to add was easy to foresee.

The actors did an okay job, but the smell of poorly produced tv-drama can never be washed away from Swedish productions.

The setup is good, though: a murderer stalking teenagers in an amusement park, around Halloween, non the less. The movie didn't use all of this potential, though. The haunted house could've been used more effectively.

It was not really much of a debate whether or not to sit down and watch the 2023 Swedish horror movie "Karusell" (aka "Carousel", though the movie was oddly titled "Halloween Park" as the title was on the screen), when I happened to stumble upon it by random luck here in 2024. Sure, I had never even heard about it prior to watching it, but that was no deterrence from sitting down to watch it.

And this was actually the first Swedish horror movie I have ever seen. Sure, I have watched Swedish movies and TV before, but never a horror movie.

Writers Mårten Gisbym Filip Hammarström and Henry Stenberg starts the movie out quite nicely in an upbeat pace, which definitely was something I liked. The storyline was actually fairly okay, and it made for a fair enough viewing experience. There was something about a horror movie set to play out in an amusement park, which is supposed to be a place of fun and laughter.

The narrative, however, took a turn for a more slow pace, after a rather intense beginning of the movie. A mere 30 minutes into the movie, I actually thought that I had sat through maybe 45 or 60 minutes. So arm yourself with some patience, should you opt to sit down and watch "Karusell".

Given my extremely limited exposure to the Swedish cinema, then I was not familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list. The acting performances by the cast members were good though. It was, however, insanely difficult to understand the dialect spoken by actress Wilma Lidén.

Ultimately, "Karusell" had potential, but the writers opted to play it safe and ran with some generic horror tropes, and that sort of made it into a rather generic, although watchable, young adults running from a masked slasher type horror movie, and those were a dime a dozen back in the glory days of horror cinema.

My rating of director Simon Sandquist's 2023 horror movie "Karusell" lands on a five out of ten stars.

A typical fall slasher, designed to exploit the usual demand for horror movies at Halloween. The film was directed by a little-known Swedish filmmaker and the unusual setting was the Liseberg amusement park in Gothenburg, one of the largest in Europe. With no big mystery or gore and a somewhat misguided ending, it's a dull, formulaic and predictable slasher that will unfortunately leave the audience yawning more than creeped out. Not even the deaths caused by the "doll-faced' killer are something, because they're all disappointing and somehow lacking any spectacularity. Also, the young cast turned out to be a failure, especially since they don't have much material to work with either. To sum up, a mediocre slasher in a fantastic setting and nothing else.

Large doses of scares, axes, gory scenes and scary costumes are in this terrifying "Slasher" set at a attraction park in the middle of Halloween. The premise of the film is as macabre as it is simple: a foolish group of young people enter an amusement park with monsters... that turn out to be real. Thrilling and creepy terror movie in which a group of teenagers go to a night amusement park resulting in fateful consequences. They won an exclusive private sneak preview of Halloween at Liseberg - a whole night, all alone in the empty park. The group of friends go to amusement park where they will find a lot of surprises. Guided by Fiona, a former member of the group with whom they do not have a good relationship, the teenagers begin a night of continuous fun, with all the attractions for their full enjoyment, but cotton candy, lovely rides and lots of laughter soon turn into something completely different, as they realize they are not alone in the park, then things go wrong. A merciless , brutal killer goes bersek, terrorizing the group of friends. .Something is alive in the funhouse...something that, tonight, will turn the funhouse into a carnival of terror! . The Thrill is the relentless hunt carried put by a heinous and sinister doll-masked murderer against some unfortunate visitors at the amusement park. Fun getting in !. Hell getting out !. Terror never felt so real !. The night of dreams quickly turns into a true nightmare !.

A scary and gory horror flick with a devasting and threatening series killer executing astonishing crimes. The chilling plot is simple and plain, an ordinary screenplay of hundreds of Slashers , as a masked serial murderer turns a terror-themed amusement park into his own personal playground, and the essential twisted issue results to be that the killer on the loose undertakes a criminal spree while the victims flee desperately. A disconcerting opening scene introduces you to this Slasher in which a private Halloween night in an amusement park quickly turns into a real nightmare full of blood, secrets and revenge. A typical criminal spree in which some teenagers begin a night in which fun turns into a nightmare when they realize that they are not alone in the park. Horror Park is structured through the mixture of the chilling events in the amusement park and a series of flashbacks with which the characters' past is revealed. Karusell (2023) follows the style of the recent ¨Hell Fest¨ (2018) by Gregory Plotkin and ¨Haunt¨ (2019) by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods ,of which it seems a simple copy, also dealing with a psycho-killer in masked figure going bersek at an amusement park. Al the same time, all of them bear remarkable resemblance to the classic ¨Tobe Hooper's The Funhouse (1981)¨ about four teenagers spending a night at a carnival funhose, who become next on the list of victims.

It contains dark and sinister cinematography, in fact the camera often assumes a pointedly aggressive stance, as well as screeching and eerie musical score. Filmmaker Simon Sandquist directs professionally but nothing special this disturbing survival story full of horrror, chiller and chases inside a haunted amusement park. Swedish Simon Sandquist is an editor and director, working interchangeably for television or cinema, shooting both in Sweden and the United States ; known for The Invisible (2002), Studenfest (2013), Legend and lies (2015), Lost (2016) , Beach Hunters (2017), Last outpost (2018), and Victor (1998). His greatest hit was The Invisible (2002) of which he made an American adaptation titled Possession (2009) with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Lee Pace. Karusell(2023) Rating: average 5/10. The flick will appeal to horror fans, although we had already seen the plot and the situations portrayed before and better filmed .

"Karusell" takes on a genre in the Swedish film industry thats risen the last decade. Its a genre that's growing in Sweden and that hasent had many tries before.

This film actually succeeds with being scary and bringing a twisted story. Just as the Netflix film Konferansen (2023).

Its a pretty good story, with a driven and realistic manuscript. It manages to mix the feeling of being trapped and loosing controll, while being followed in a small area by a haunting killer.

The actors is pretty average according to me. They aren't super good, but they arent bad either.

I really recommend it!! A good horrorfilm!

No pun intended - it's Halloween season! Well if you believe the international title - which is true of course, when it comes to the time this plays. But it is just the setting - it could have been easter too. Of course it is a lot "funnier" to have a revenge movie play out in the scary season.

The past is coming to the present to haunt ... well not us, but the people who did something wrong. That is more than fair to say. We can try to guess who the bad ... person(s) is(are) here - and by bad I mean the killer(s), not the morally questionable "victims" ... again I am trying to say or rather write as little as possible ... though I do think you will be able to figure it out yourself ... decent slasher ... weird ending if you can call it that.

I genuinely loved this film. Discovering "Karusell" has been one of the highlights of my year so far. In Taiwan, the film title was aptly translated "Halloween" (with the last syllable cleverly playing on the word for 'catastrophe' in Mandarin, which is quite intriguing). It's the best horror film I've seen this year. There are no Visual effects, no CGI, and none of those cheap jump scares where some devil suddenly pops on the screen. Instead, it showcases superb makeup artistry!

The film's atmosphere is gripping, with the compelling storyboards keeping me on edge, as well as the escalating music (reminding me of "Resident Evil").

The plot, while not complex, was yet rational. "Empathy" in this movie contributes a layer of the gravity of bullying in schools. It diverges from meaningless killing as in "Final Destination" or the "Scream" series. I don't understand why local Swedish audiences rated this masterpiece so low.

I eagerly hope the filmmakers will make the sequel.

Just saw the movie i have been waiting for and it was really really good i loved this movie.

I didn't have any expectations because movies sucks nowadays but this was brilliant made and great cast and didn't want this movie to end.

Sweden has done it they made a great horror movie I hope they make a sequel or 2 because this was so good

The acting was good and had a lot of jump scares and i do think i actually pissed my pants a little bit

Let's hope they make a sequel to this one too many movies has been made without ending and sequels Would love to see where they will do next ............

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