Film Review: CARNAL MONSTERS (2021)

CARNAL MONSTERS ** UK 2021 Dir: Joe Cash. 66 mins

“Silence you slab full of wank”, that is an actual line from the movie. Yes folks we are not in the artistic gamut of a Shakespearean play with lines like those. Made on a budget of £500, which nowadays if your lucky might get you a couple of drinks in London, CARNAL MONSTERS is extremely low budget. If you take off the opening and end credits the actual film itself clocks in at 51 minutes but it sure does pack a lot of nudity on the screen in that time.

The thin strand of storyline that Writer/Director Joe Cash has for this escapade of nonsense is this: Two girls escape from scientist Dr. Dilf (Ian Sen) and his busty nurses Nurse Spanks (Alexxa Vice) and Nurse Meow (Laura Barker). The girls are later found by a very vocal group of goth type girls that are out exploring, try to help these other girls that are unconscious and have been tortured. Taking the girls to a more comfortable location, well if you call a dilapidated military site comfortable, the two girls wake up frenzied and set out to kill those who saved them. Talk about ungrateful. Now these friends must grab what they can to fight off these maniacs.

And that is the story in a nut shell, yes there is not a lot of meat on the bones of this flick but CARNAL MONSTERS is low budget shlock and it knows it. It does manage to fit in cameos from TROMA head honcho Lloyd Kaufman and “First Jason” Ari Lehman (FRIDAY THE 13TH) (1980), and for those eagle-eyed TROMA fans out there the footage of the car crashing and flipping from SGT. KABUKIMAN N.Y.P.D. (1990) makes yet another appearance. This makes it (from my count) at least 6 times this footage has popped up in the history of TROMA films, and why not re-use it its great iconic footage.

Besides the nudity from a lot of the girls in this film and its feet set firmly in exploitation filmmaking territory CARNAL MONSTERS has gone on to win Best Film, Best Scream Queen, Best Breasts, Best Supporting Actor and Actress awards at various festivals. Who says sex doesn’t sell!

There are times where it is hard to work out what the cast are saying so there is a few sound issues with this film but that is a minor quibble. It is also worth noting that Joe Cash had actually suffered a stroke only a few months before filming so add that in with how the film came out I think we can be pretty lenient on the results.

Joe Cash is busy working on a follow up to this film called CARNAL REDEMPTION which will see the return of some familiar faces including Dr. Dilf.

On a final note, if you can look past its budgetary constraints, need something to watch that is short and you can turn your brain off while watching, then CARNAL MONSTERS is possibly the film for you.

Review by Peter ‘Witchfinder‘ Hopkins