- A family infiltrates a sinister carnival where their son mysteriously disappeared.
- The Norris family get jobs working at a seedy old carnival as a cover for searching for their missing son who disappeared after visiting said carnival. Eccentric manager Mr. Blood turns out to be a vampire while the evil owner Malatesta rules over a gaggle of ghastly ghouls who watch silent movies when they aren't feasting on human flesh.—Woodyanders
- Vena Norris (Janine Carazo) is a young woman working in a small, rundown amusement park. She and her mother (Betsy Henn) and father (Paul Hostetler) live in their RV on the park's grounds, where they attend to various rides and games. What the Norris family are really doing, however, is searching for Vena's brother, Lucky (Sebastian Stuart), who disappeared after visiting the park. The "carnival" is run by a man known as Mr. Blood (Jerome Dempsey), who works for the park's owner, a tall, thin man known as Malatesta (Daniel Dietrich).
Vena has a flirtation with a young coworker named Kit (Chris Thomas), even though she has a boyfriend at home named Johnny (Paul Townsend). Vena talks to Johnny on the phone and they discuss Johnny coming to visit. Her sense of foreboding about being at the park is intensified after an ominous card reading by the park's fortune teller, Sonja (Lenny Baker), which distresses Sonja greatly. Kit is also suspicious of the park's true nature due to local gossip, and an incident where a mother and father take their young daughter through a "tunnel of love" indoor boat ride and are not on board when the boat returns. Kit walks into the ride to search for them and finds only the father's now-shattered eyeglasses, along with traces of blood.
Mrs. Norris begs her husband to leave the carnival, but he insists that they stay until they find out what happened to their son. In a flashback sequence, we see what actually happened to Lucky; he and his friend visit the park at night and he is decapitated by the roller coaster. When the friend approaches Mr. Blood to ask for help, Blood directs him to the park's deranged custodian (William Preston), who impales him with a litter sticker pole. Severely injured, the boy is taken into the tunnels beneath the park, where he is hung on a transport and delivered to a disheveled crowd of ghoulish looking people, who sing hymns while Blood (now revealed to be a vampire) connects the boy to equipment that drains his blood. As he convulses, the ghouls eat him alive.
In addition to Sonja, a carnival co-worker named Bobo (Herve Villechaize) says ominous things in rhyme to an increasingly distressed Vena, who brings Kit into the investigation. The two of them meet surreptitiously at night, but are menaced by the Sticker, who chases them into hiding. When they attempt to escape the park, Kit is deterred by an electrified fence, so they retreat. Vena falls asleep in the RV, but she dreams she is exploring the park. These scenes are cut together with images of the ghouls in the tunnels beneath watching silent movies projected on a wall (Lon Chaney in "Phantom of the Opera" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", specifically). Vena is drawn into the tunnels, where she finds all the strange artifacts assembled there by the underground dwellers: swinging beds made from old car parts, yards of plastic sheeting and bubble wrap, weird shelters adorned with leftover signs and figures from carnival attractions. Overseen by Malatesta and Bobo, she finds herself wading through the crowd of ghouls, who grab at her and pelt her with popcorn. She runs out of the tunnels to find Kit and discovers his dead body on the Ferris wheel. Meanwhile, Mr. Norris awakens and discovers that Vena is gone, her sleeping figure in the dark top bunk revealed to be only a carnival figurine. Ignoring the protests of his wife, Mr. Norris goes out after her, armed with a handgun. After he's gone, Mrs. Norris is chased back into the camper by a horde of ghouls.
Elsewhere, Vena tries to call for help from a phone booth, but is chased off by the Sticker. She gets the upper hand and bludgeons him with a board, but ends up fainting in a tunnel, where she is found by Blood. Mr. Norris, still searching for her, is hounded by ghouls in the tunnels beneath the park.
Meanwhile, Johnny arrives at the carnival looking for Vena and the others, encountering the strange characters who inhabit the place. Vena is awakened in the tunnels by Blood, who tells her he intends to lead her to safety, where Johnny is waiting. As they walk through the tunnels, he explains to her about the underground area's strange cannibalistic inhabitants, most of them having never seen the light of day. Instead of leading her to safety, Blood takes her to a laboratory and straps her to a table, draining some of her blood into a bottle from which he drinks. Malatesta arrives, however, having told Blood that he is not to touch Vena, and he punishes Blood by revealing his 'true face', which causes Blood to immediately collapse, screaming. Malatesta carries the unconscious Vena into another tunnel and places her on a roller coaster next to Blood's lifeless corpse. He sends the ghouls after Mr. and Mrs. Norris, both of them now in the tunnel looking for Vena. Mrs. Norris is separated from her husband and confronted by ghouls, who eat her alive. Mr. Norris ends up in a hall of mirrors, where Malatesta stabs him in the eye with a sword.
Johnny reappears, sneaking up behind Malatesta and throttling him, but realizes that Malatesta has suddenly transformed into a dummy made of bubble wrap. Bobo and another carnival creep manage to best him and pummel him with their fists. Sonja finds Vena and promises to take her to safety, but actually leads her to an underground storage locker, where she finds the corpses of her parents hanging from hooks. Sonja locks her in, trapping her.
Above ground in the light of day, a State Trooper is making a rote follow up with Malatesta near a dunking booth in the park. There's an implication that the police are covering up the disappearances of the victims of the park, offering protection to Malatesta in exchange for certain favors. Bobo appears and invites the cop to throw some balls at the target to dunk the person in the booth, who turns out to be a bound and gagged Johnny. The trooper scores a hit, sending him into the water where he presumably drowns. Vena is seen shuddering in the storage room and then falling still in the dark, as if dead. Malatesta spins around on a carnival ride while the calliope plays.
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By what name was Malatesta's Carnival of Blood (1973) officially released in India in English?
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