Panic Fest 2024: Carnage Radio

“Carnage Radio” is a flawed but fun indie thriller that survives on the strength of its characters and compelling small-town authenticity.

As a Texas girl, born and bred, I was immediately drawn to the synopsis for Carnage Radio, an indie horror film about a radio DJ in a small West Texas town who receives a call from an unknown voice that leads him through a mind game.

In the center of the West Texas crossroads lies a sleepy little town where everyone knows everyone. The local late-night radio DJ, Brad Sand (Brandon J. Johnson), is as close to a homegrown celebrity as they get. Brad keeps the town feeling connected by sharing personal stories, bantering with callers, and keeping everyone abreast of the local news — the big stuff like some missing prize-winning chickens or a man found drinking whiskey pantsless.

For the first time in twelve years, a murder occurs in this “nothing ever happens town” and then another one. Clues take police detectives Sarah Ornelas (Olivia Clari Nice) and Casey McMillan (Zach Campbell) to the radio station after discovering that Brad was the last person to speak with the victims before their deaths.

Though our characters are unaware of who the killer is, the audience has already been shown that hand from a prior interaction.

A newcomer to the town named Jacob (an unnerving but deceptively charming Brandon Elonzae), who works with Brad’s ex-wife Alice (Rachel DeRouen), is in town looking for some kind of purpose. He’s apparently found it, but to what end?

Carnage Radio is a love letter to a small-town pastiche blended with a police procedural mystery thriller and the pursuit of a savvy serial killer.

It’s a little bit of Pontypool (one of my favorites) meets The Town That Dreaded Sundown meets Hot Fuzz.

There are moments of campy humor and lighthearted fun, especially in the first half of the film, as we are introduced to our core cast of characters. Things take a darker turn with some intense and emotional scenes at about the film’s halfway point once the manhunt is in full swing.

At this point, we shift away from Brad as our central protagonist and focus instead on the small police team led by Detective Ornelas and Police Chief Ralph Searcy, played by genre regular Mike Ferguson. From here on out, we get a frantic race to find the killer as he leaves considerable carnage in his wake.

In the final act, we shift again to focus on a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase between the maniacal Jacob and the fierce and capable final girl Alice, channeling her best Sydney Prescott.

Elonzae makes a chilling villain. It’s captivating watching him escalate the brutality and frequency of his kills as he becomes increasingly unhinged and consumed by his psychosis.

It’s well shot, and the soundtrack and score do a fantastic job setting the mood. In the first half, the soundtrack is fun and full of playful energy, and in the latter half, it’s pulse-pounding, effectively building tension and keeping us on the edge of our seats.

Carnage Radio features a great cast of characters and a bevy of believable performances, with standouts from DeRouen and Nice.

If you’ve ever been to small-town Texas or any small town in the Deep South, every person, location, and conversation feels utterly authentic. That makes sense, given that writer-director James Frite hails from Big Spring in the heart of West Texas. He’s clearly paying homage to the people and places he knows and loves.

The ending packs a surprising emotional punch, reinforcing the film’s overarching theme, one focused far more on humanity than horror. It’s a clarion call for the importance of community and the kind of loving, supportive relationships born out of tight-knit communities.

Though I had a good time with Carnage Radio, it’s not a perfect film.

It runs a little long at nearly two hours, and a tighter edit could have made this even stronger and more enjoyable. The coda at the end is designed to tie everything up with a feel-good bow and give characters more closure. It’s excellent acting work and solid writing, but it feels a bit heavy-handed and unnecessary.

There’s tonal inconsistency, and the end feels like a very different movie from the beginning. In fact, it feels like two completely different films, loosely stitched together at the halfway mark. The premise promises intrigue and a compelling dynamic between the radio host and the serial killer. This premise, however, is immediately dropped once the police start chasing the killer.

To that end, if you’re tuning in for overt horror, you will likely be disappointed. You do get some thrilling scenes and bloody violence, but it’s never scary. However, I will say the action is well-choreographed and fun to watch.

My biggest complaint is that the film sets up a mystery but never delivers on it.

As I mentioned earlier, we know who the killer is right out of the gate, so the only real mystery promised is trying to understand his motivations and why he’s doing what he’s doing. We never get an answer to that.

The film wastes valuable runtime, letting him monologue about his greater purpose, and we’re led to believe there’s some method to his madness. He appears to be intelligent, well-spoken, and driven by some perceived higher purpose. I was eager to uncover more depth.

In the end, however, any type of intrigue is quickly dropped in favor of action, and our killer gets reduced to a maniac with nothing driving him other than psychosis.

Criticisms aside, there’s enough here that works — and works really well. I genuinely appreciate what Frite is trying to accomplish, and I was connected to the characters and invested in the outcome. I had fun watching this and was entertained throughout, rarely feeling restless in spite of the long runtime.

The writing, direction, performance, and technical aspects were all strong. It was smart for Frite to add some emotional gravitas, which helped to ground the film.

Ultimately, I loved Carnage Radio’s heart and soul: human connections matter more than ever in this world of virtual living and political/cultural divisiveness.