Carnival of Souls

When I saw a copy of Carnival of Souls together with Night of the Living Dead for a measly buck, I figured I would go ahead and take advantage. After all, I could always use a backup copy of Night of the Living Dead, and this Carnival of Souls looked good for laughs. So I bought the set, having a bit of change on me, and that night I readied myself for some fun.

When I put Carnival of Souls into the player, I was at first a bit unimpressed. I mean, nothing really happened that related to any sort of plot. Then, about 25 minutes into the film I started feeling very uneasy, a feeling I was unfamiliar with in film with the exception of Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining'. the story is simple, to put it short a woman survives a car accident, and delves into a dissolute surrealistic nightmare.

The surreal atmosphere, the sudden realizations of fear, and the general feel of the film gave a VERY foreboding atmosphere, which haunted me the entire following week. The film is just so foreboding, I could not help but remain uneasy, even the second time around.

The film also was also fairly technically impressive, at least more so then I thought. This film had come six years before George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead, but the use of camera is very similar, and it is very evident that Romero has been influenced by this film's direction. It is a shame that Herk Harvey did not expand on his talent, this is his only feature, yet there is nothing amateur about it. It is very advanced considering what it is, and I was overtly impressed with it.

I suppose Carnival of Souls could, and maybe should warrant an 8/10, I gave it 7/10, but it is truly an original film, and one that I feel holds up very well in the present day. I think it is a must see for fans of surrealism, horror, or just experiences.

I've never heard of this movie and came upon it only while flipping channels. This is a great movie but it's one of those movies that grows on you. At first I thought it was dumb and I just didn't get it. It's very eerie and has somewhat a dreamlike quality to it. This was in the '60s so the movie depended on fright-makeup and really ugly people for special effects.

I appreciated the movie beyond its celluloid being. The filmmakers threw in every idea they had in their heads into the movie. No line was drawn. Nothing was unassailable. It didn't have to make sense as long as an idea was weird and creeped out someone on the set. To some people this might seem senseless but for some strange reason I got it. The innocent quality of the movie is a breath of fresh air. No hidden messages. No untruths to be uncovered from the facts.

While watching the movie I thought about directors whose work I love. Films whereby passion outweighed everything else. Did Ed Wood had some influence on Herk Harvey? Was David Lynch inspired by Carnival of Souls?

Watch it without prejudice and you'll see the simplicity and brilliance the filmmakers were trying to acheive. Watch it with a jaded, pretentious eye and you could be missing out on a movie that was more thought provoking than it intended to be.

I have just seen this movie for the second time and love it twice as much. The great thing about it is that it's quiet and dreamlike and there's absolutely no blood or gore or real violence. And it's in black and white-you can't beat that! I assume you all know the story very well, a story I find to be most intriguing and not at all as predictable and plain as everyone makes it out to be. Mary Henry and her friends sail off a bridge, although Mary is mysteriously unscathed. After that, while dealing with her job as a church organist and various other characters, she is pursued by a devilishly delicious zombie and goes through periods of complete estrangement from the world. And then of course there's her neighbor Mr. Linden. He's so greasy and sex-crazed that I couldn't help but love him, and he makes an excellent contrast against Candace Hilligoss's solitary, quiet character. Their scenes together are eerie just on their own(Linden spying on a changing Mary and the attempted-necking scene infront of the mirror) Mary is also drawn toward an old pavillion where her eventual end takes place, and that too is eerie. Her periods of silence are probably the creepiest of the movie, almost claustrophobic and especially dreadful. I mean-who wants to be in broad daylight and feel like they're the last person on earth while practically going deaf? All in all, let's just put it this way. I'm an old movie guru, so this is obviously going to pertain to me more than The Sixth Sense and all those other gore fests, and even so, you can't help but love this movie. I'll be treasuring it for a long time.

Herk Harvey and Candace Hilligoss are not household names to most persons and for good reason. Their body of work outside of this film is tragically low. I say tragically because Harvey as the film's producer/director and Hilligoss as the female lead were the main reason Carnival of Souls is remembered today as it is. Carnival of Souls is a great little gem and, I would say, a masterpiece of it's genre. Shot on a very low budget in 1962, much of it was filmed in Lawrence, Kansas, where the University of Kansas is located and where one of it's leading players (Speech instructor Sidney Berger as Ms. Hilligoss' `love interest') was on the teaching staff. Harvey also appeared as the mysterious apparition throughout the story. The story concerns a young woman, Hilligoss as Mary Henry, who has evidently survived an automobile plunging off of a bridge and into deep water. After being rescued, Mary begins to see the apparition, impressively played by Harvey in a low key, understated manner, and notices that there are times when she cannot be seen or heard by those around her. Harvey is truly outstanding, made up to look as a zombie with hollow, piercing eyes. Hilligoss as Mary is equally impressive as the strong-willed yet strangely vulnerable Mary. Hilligoss was an attractive, if not beautiful woman, and perfect for the role as Mary. Carnival of Souls is one of those films that worked, and worked well, almost in spite of itself. On the surface it would not appear that it had much going for it. Mary's adventures take her to a boarding house where she receives the mostly unwanted attentions of her lecherous neighbor, John, capably played by Berger. She accepts a job as a church organist, giving Harvey the perfect in to include some very eerie music within the story, and is mysteriously drawn to an old amusement park, where she experiences the dances of the dead, the film's most impressive scenes. Eventually she is drawn outside the abandoned ballroom to the beach and claimed as one of their own by the party of zombies, confirming what we have suspected all along. Mood, atmosphere and creative camera work set this film apart, a film which was ahead of its time as was 1968's Night of the Living Dead. Carnival of Souls is greater than the sum of its parts, as all things excellent must always be. It is a pity we did not see more of Herk Harvey or Candace Hilligoss. Horror buffs will always wonder, what if? .. Still, I believe it preferable to do a single masterpiece rather than a large body of the forgettable. Perhaps they were wise and understood that this was the one great work allotted them. I hope this is the case but we will never know.

Not many people know of this film, surprisingly--this is one of the most intelligently constructed and atmospheric horror (for lack of a better term) movies of all time. Whenever I do run across someone else who has seen this film, there is an instantaneous, unspoken understanding in regards to the enduring creepiness of this film.

My first viewing of COS occurred when I had inexplicably awoke in the middle of the night as a boy and switched on the TV. I had missed the opening minutes, but was powerfully drawn into the story. I sat transfixed until the shock ending, and think I just stared until after the sign off and following screen static. The next day I was not entirely sure I had actually watched this film or dreamed it--nobody else had ever heard of it and I never did catch the title (for some reason, its never shown much). Needless to say I was creeped out for days! Films that can affect one's sensibilities like this are golden! Find it and watch it in the middle of the night--alone.