This film of Herk Harvey is a gem of cult, a unique product, considering that the director never would film again due to the commercial failure of this prime opera. A true pity, since from the titles we are in front of an absolutely original and punctilious piece of work, as much in the aesthetic aspect as in casting and the production. A calm little town as many in the average American west, in the early ' 60s. A race cars between boys and girls that finishes in tragedy. The car of the young people falls from a bridge to the river and apparently all suffocates. But Mary Henry leaves the water. Later she obtains a solitary job as an organist in the church of a near town. Her life seems to take control again , when Mary begins to have strange visions of macabre figures... but her will is put under taste more .Mary is a cold of great clear eyes, independent and distant blonde; . In fact, the personage of Mary is few years subsequent to the one of the blondes of Psychosis and Vertigo, even a doctor appears who does the times of psychiatrist, who resembles films of the great British director again. and three years previous to the one of Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion, of Polanski;(the personal style of the film it just remains me o a Polanski film,I wonder if he saw this movie) been compared to Wild Strawberries-era Ingmar Bergman and the dreamstates of Jean Cocteau. Nevertheless, the carnival of the souls has with all these titles a great climate affinity and characters; . I cannot say more; The carnival of the souls is dream like, hypnotic, frightful per moments, always disquieting is a total experience. Notice the ballroom scene of the macabre people(In fast motion). Shot on location in and around the spectacular Saltair pavilion (since destroyed by fire), and the soundtrack is pretty creepy too.
