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.

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.

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.

Carnival of souls (1962) is that rare thing in life. An intelligent and genuinely unsettling horror film. Where most horror films go for the obvious effects of gore and leave nothing to the imagination, this film takes a far more subtle approach. The film deals with the story of a withdrawn church organist Mary (Candice Hilligloss) who is involved in a car crash from which she is the only survivor. She then finds herself being pursued by a strange ghoulish looking man and has episodes where it appears no one around her can see or hear her. This leads to a startling revelation for Mary at the old abandoned Carnival in the desert.

What makes this film so good is its eerie atmosphere and the strong visual influence of German expressionist cinema, mixed with some pretty good photography (for such a low budget) and good performances from a mainly non-professional cast, results in a fine example of how to unnerve an audience without big budgets and special effects.

The film can also be seen as being a major influential on other such films as David Lynch's Eraserhead (1976) and George Romero's Night of the living dead (1968).

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.