Carnival of Souls

Title: Carnival of Souls (1962)

Director: Herk Harvey

Cast: Candace Hilligoss, Frances Feist, Sidney Berger, Art Ellison, Stan Levitt, Tom McGinnis

Review: I love going back in time while watching old horror films. I love to see what scared people in different eras and times. Some people completely dismiss old films just because they are old. I relish the moment when I can find an obscure gem and just indulge in it. Sometimes I find a true classic like when I saw White Zombie for the first time...sometimes I find a dud like when I saw the original 13 Ghosts. This time around in my humble opinion I have found a really creepy and surreal film in director Herk Harveys Carnival of Souls.

The story is about this girl called Mary who gets involved in a car accident in which she emerges completely unharmed. All her friends die, but she is left in a perfect state. She decides to move to a new town to start anew. She takes a job in a church as a "profesional organist" and moves into a new place. Unfortunately she begins seeing a ghostly apparition and she is strangely attracted by the spooky abandoned amusement park near her new home. What horrors await for her inside? And why is she seeing these visions? This film has a few faults in various departments. For one, I thought that the editing in the movie really sucked. You'll notice little skips here and there in the continuity of the film, it doesn't flow fluidly. It hits a few speed bumps along the way. The sound was also a bit atrocious at times, I could barely make out what they were saying in certain parts at the beginning of the film. But somehow...in spite of all of its flaws this movie had me reeled in from the get go.

The character of Mary is likable so I felt like sticking with her and seeing where she was going to end up. I liked her attitude about her job in church just "being a job". She didn't take religion seriously and I was like "whoa, there's a girl with a head on her shoulders!". Anyhows, I kept watching and things began to get a whole lot more interesting as the film progressed. Its one of those films that has a bad start (mainly because of its technical faults) but as it goes on it gets really good.

I loved the strange location they used to shoot the old abandoned amusement park. Apparently there really was an abandoned amusement park in the middle of nowhere and they shot part of the movie there! The director was wise to take advantage of this location and shoot the hell out of it. It has a real isolated feel to it. You can tell, it really is in the middle of nowheresville. So that added to the feeling of creepyness and isolation. Specially seeing Mary going into it all by herself.

Once the spooks join in on the story, well things get really nightmarish. And heres where the film won its classic status for me. The images that the film conjures up, specially towards the last half of the film are some of the most surreal, nightmarish I have seen on screen. And to top things off, its all in black and white which adds another layer of spookiness to the whole affair.

As I watched it I thought to myself, man, this director was really ahead of his time! And he was! He managed to make some truly haunting imagery all the way back in 1962! Sadly because the critics shot this movie down, he never made more feature films. He did manage to make a lot of educational documentaries. But no more movies.

So if you are up from some truly spooky surreal images that feel like something that came out of your worst nightmares, go rent this baby. Just remember it has a few imperfections here and there, but once you get through the rough stuff, you'll get to what really matters. Those spooky ass visions filled with ghosts and ghouls! Sweet Dreams! Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5

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.

Carnival of Souls (from 1962, not the unrelated 1998 movie with the same name) is an (admittedly obscure) art-house classic. Shot in high-contrast black-and-white, on a miniscule budget, it has an eerie, dreamlike quality throughout perhaps reminiscent of Roman Polanski's "Repulsion".

Although the lead Candace Hilligoss had acted before, many of the supporting players were not professionals and some of the locations were worked into the film simply because they were available (for example the deserted funfair, apparently located in Salt Lake City). The director Herk Harvey, who had worked on educational shorts before directing this feature, makes a cameo appearance as one of the "dancing dead" at the funfair towards the end of the movie.

One of a kind, and recommended.

After viewing this legendary flick for the first time, I have to say that the quality they achieved on a shoestring is still impressive today. Every penny spent on this little film makes its way before the viewer, which is something that can't be said of most major budget films then or now. Corman used "getting the money up on the screen" as his yardstick for his own success as low budget producer and director. But while I like the Corman cheapies, like Bucket of Blood and Little Shop of Horrors, and acknowledge that they possess a relatively high level of workman-like resourcefulness, it's hard to deny that Carnival makes many of Corman's films look slapped-out and unimaginative in comparison. Corman usually steered clear of anything poetic, dabbling with it most pointedly in the dream sequences in his first Poe adaptations. In contrast, this films makers are quoted to the effect that they were inspired by Bergman and Cocteau. Now, with such heroic ambition, Carnival could have turned out a laughable mess. But the films dark waking dream atmosphere is well realized. They had some really great locations– the pavilion, the wooden bridge, the organ factory and the church with the "casting out demons" stained glass. The actress playing the heroine is lucky (or skillful) casting, too; she doesn't look or act quite like the average person, which is perfect for the story. If I picked one thing to complain about, it would be the interlude with the guy from across the hall in the rooming house, about the writing of that section and especially about the actor who played him. But I won't. There's just too much good to be said about this small masterpiece of independent film making.

Ten stars. See it.

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.