"That's a nice-a donut."

Tuesday, May 24, 2005


Carnival of Souls

From director Herk Harvey, Carnival of Souls is a classic B-picture that has surely influenced many modern horror films including Night of the Living Dead, The Shining, The Vanishing, as well as some David Lynch mindbenders. The film begins as Mary Henry (Candace Halligoss) and some of her friends engage in a street race. There is an accident and Mary and her two girlfriends go off a bridge and sink into a river below. Miraculously and to the amazement of the townspeople, some three hours after the crash, Mary emerges from the depths of the river. She is dazed, and seems a little out of place now, so heads off for a job to be an organist for a church in a sleepy Utah town (where the minister at the church remarks that they now have an organist who is "capable of stirring the souls"). But she seems to be experiencing some hallucinations and is being followed by a mysterious, creepy man. Meanwhile, she is mesmerized by and drawn to an old pavilion by a lake that used to be a bathhouse and then housed a carnival before being deserted. But why - and what does the pavilion have to do with anything? Mary may just be losing her mind, and we are led to a startling climax.

Harvey does a great job of building an eerie, haunting atmosphere in which nothing seems quite right. Things seem so peaceful and normal in this serene town. Yet Mary is filled with such anxiety and dread, that we know that terror may be lurking just around the corner. The story is held together by a great spooky organ score that helps to portray the paranoia that we (she and the viewer) are feeling. There are also some very nice shots, particularly of the bridge and river where the accident took place. Nothing is wasted; everything is on the screen for a reason and Harvey makes very efficient use of the short running time. Given the very low B-budget, some of the acting is rather amateurish though. But Halligoss in the lead role is okay and other actors can generally be forgiven since this isn't exactly a 19th Century Victorian character study or anything like that. Also the film editing is awkward in places.

Note that the dandy Criterion Collection DVD includes both the original theatrical cut as well as an extended director's cut of the film. The latter restores an additional 4 or 5 minutes of screen time and is the preferred version.

The Verdict: A-.

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