| "In Color for the first time: for pure skin-crawling spookiness, Carnival of Souls is in a class by itself.” |
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Carnival of Souls
DVD/APPROX. 78 MINS/1962/USA UNRATED
DVD/APPROX. 78 MINS/1962/USA UNRATED
7
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Herk Harvey’s only feature film as director, Carnival of Souls, is a 1960s cult horror film of an increasing reputation for quality amongst devotees of
offbeat “midnight-movie” type chillers. It is acknowledged by film historians as a minor classic of the genre and its influence is such that it was
recently re-made alongside the wave of remakes of 1970s subversive horror classics. Although obscure, and “tame” by comparison to
contemporary horror, those home viewers whose interests lie in discovering the subtle curiosities of the horror genre rather than the blatant gore
and tits ‘n ass of the grindhouse gore-pornhound scene will be rewarded with this DVD release as it is a solid re-packaging.
In a small Kansas town, a street drag race results in an accident in which a carload of three young women go off a bridge into a river. Police
search the river but cannot find the car, considering it lost in the sand and current of the waters. Some hours later, the lone surviving woman
(Candace Hilligoss) crawls out of the water to shore. Later, recovered, she vows never to return to the town and leaves. En route to her new
destination she almost has a car accident at the hallucinatory sight of a zombie-like man. Arriving, she takes residence at a rooming house and
accepts a job as organist for the town Church. She begins to set up a new life, meeting men and re-outfitting herself with new clothes. However,
after continued visions of the strange man, she is increasingly drawn to an old carnival pavilion not far from where she lives. She goes to seek
counselling about the strange visions and although is given a sound psychological reason, cannot help but believe the visions are real in a way
only she knows.
Suspenseful rather than visceral, Carnival of Souls is a creepy thriller with an often hallucinatory macabre style. It is a film of chilling moments and
subtle nuance, carefully depicting the effects on a woman’s psychological strength of her realization that her “reality” is unstable: increasingly
other-worldly. The final act is one of the finer pieces of 1960s horror, measuring eerie beauty, despair, helplessness and terror with equal
measure. Scenes of the heroine leaving behind her life for a new start and driving on the lone open road even bring to mind Janet Leigh in the first
part of Psycho: indeed, the film is a cleverly Freudian assessment of an hysterical woman in the manner of early Roman Polanski films, notably
Repulsion. Director Harvey is always careful to balance psychological and supernatural explanations for the events in the film and the resulting
uncertainty over what one can take as real is constantly destabilizing, making this unusual film always entertaining and often surprisingly gripping,
particularly in its conclusion. Scenes in the carnival setting are often starkly atmospheric and filmed for cumulative menace.
The increasingly dream-like texture of this film is successfully maintained by a nervous, edgy black and white realism in which ordinary America
seems downright funereal as Hilligoss is drawn to the mysterious carnival. Stylized and nightmarish, the film cleverly parallels the heroine’s
descent into hallucination and madness with the psychological ambiguity over her fate as lone survivor – why is she seeing dead people? Thus,
the relationship between her visions and her trauma remain deliberately unresolved and unsettling so as to disturb any single reading of the film.
Repeated use of carnival and organ music to break an otherwise naturalistic sound design adds a sense of the uncanny beneath the everyday and
neatly captures the fragility underlying the façade of Hilligoss’ apparent emotional indifference to her trauma. Director Harvey well suggests the
instability of a woman no longer sure of her own psychological well-being. Religious iconography and belief are subtly allowed to overlap her
sense of herself although remain, like much of the film, evocative.
Carnival of Souls is more of an atmospheric mood piece than an outright horror film: it was made a mere few years before George A. Romero
established visceral gore as the future of the horror genre in Night of the Living Dead and relies on subtleties and character psychology rather
than outright shock. In that it is effective. The film has been released on DVD in prior versions and this new Off-Color Films DVD release offers the
classic black and white version alongside a new all-colour version. In colour, it looks like a cartoon and much of the nuance is lost – but if you must
have colour, it is technically sound. In addition to trailers is a commentary track by Mystery Theatre 3000 host Mike Nelson in his usual drolly
informative, un-spooling fashion. For a decent collectible version of a cult classic or a good print to examine for the first time, this DVD is a reliable
purchase.
offbeat “midnight-movie” type chillers. It is acknowledged by film historians as a minor classic of the genre and its influence is such that it was
recently re-made alongside the wave of remakes of 1970s subversive horror classics. Although obscure, and “tame” by comparison to
contemporary horror, those home viewers whose interests lie in discovering the subtle curiosities of the horror genre rather than the blatant gore
and tits ‘n ass of the grindhouse gore-pornhound scene will be rewarded with this DVD release as it is a solid re-packaging.
In a small Kansas town, a street drag race results in an accident in which a carload of three young women go off a bridge into a river. Police
search the river but cannot find the car, considering it lost in the sand and current of the waters. Some hours later, the lone surviving woman
(Candace Hilligoss) crawls out of the water to shore. Later, recovered, she vows never to return to the town and leaves. En route to her new
destination she almost has a car accident at the hallucinatory sight of a zombie-like man. Arriving, she takes residence at a rooming house and
accepts a job as organist for the town Church. She begins to set up a new life, meeting men and re-outfitting herself with new clothes. However,
after continued visions of the strange man, she is increasingly drawn to an old carnival pavilion not far from where she lives. She goes to seek
counselling about the strange visions and although is given a sound psychological reason, cannot help but believe the visions are real in a way
only she knows.
Suspenseful rather than visceral, Carnival of Souls is a creepy thriller with an often hallucinatory macabre style. It is a film of chilling moments and
subtle nuance, carefully depicting the effects on a woman’s psychological strength of her realization that her “reality” is unstable: increasingly
other-worldly. The final act is one of the finer pieces of 1960s horror, measuring eerie beauty, despair, helplessness and terror with equal
measure. Scenes of the heroine leaving behind her life for a new start and driving on the lone open road even bring to mind Janet Leigh in the first
part of Psycho: indeed, the film is a cleverly Freudian assessment of an hysterical woman in the manner of early Roman Polanski films, notably
Repulsion. Director Harvey is always careful to balance psychological and supernatural explanations for the events in the film and the resulting
uncertainty over what one can take as real is constantly destabilizing, making this unusual film always entertaining and often surprisingly gripping,
particularly in its conclusion. Scenes in the carnival setting are often starkly atmospheric and filmed for cumulative menace.
The increasingly dream-like texture of this film is successfully maintained by a nervous, edgy black and white realism in which ordinary America
seems downright funereal as Hilligoss is drawn to the mysterious carnival. Stylized and nightmarish, the film cleverly parallels the heroine’s
descent into hallucination and madness with the psychological ambiguity over her fate as lone survivor – why is she seeing dead people? Thus,
the relationship between her visions and her trauma remain deliberately unresolved and unsettling so as to disturb any single reading of the film.
Repeated use of carnival and organ music to break an otherwise naturalistic sound design adds a sense of the uncanny beneath the everyday and
neatly captures the fragility underlying the façade of Hilligoss’ apparent emotional indifference to her trauma. Director Harvey well suggests the
instability of a woman no longer sure of her own psychological well-being. Religious iconography and belief are subtly allowed to overlap her
sense of herself although remain, like much of the film, evocative.
Carnival of Souls is more of an atmospheric mood piece than an outright horror film: it was made a mere few years before George A. Romero
established visceral gore as the future of the horror genre in Night of the Living Dead and relies on subtleties and character psychology rather
than outright shock. In that it is effective. The film has been released on DVD in prior versions and this new Off-Color Films DVD release offers the
classic black and white version alongside a new all-colour version. In colour, it looks like a cartoon and much of the nuance is lost – but if you must
have colour, it is technically sound. In addition to trailers is a commentary track by Mystery Theatre 3000 host Mike Nelson in his usual drolly
informative, un-spooling fashion. For a decent collectible version of a cult classic or a good print to examine for the first time, this DVD is a reliable
purchase.
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