Carnival of Souls (1962)

You ever have one of those days where you feel like you're out-of-sync with the rest of the world? People aren't just passing by, they're passing through.

Around 1960 director Herk Harvey decided to make a movie about that feeling. While driving through Salt Lake City he drove by an old, abandoned amusement park. This was the seed that would bear the fruit that would become his one and only masterpiece, 1962's Carnival of Souls. Harvey directed hundreds of industrial and short-films for the Lawrence, Kansas-based Centron Corporation. Carnival of Souls was his one and only feature. It was, ironically enough, the only thing he ever did that wasn't produced by Centron. It took less than a month to shoot, cost almost next-to-nothing, and, other than the lead actress (the absolutely amazing Candace Hilligoss), the movie is populated with local "actors". What an astonishing movie it is.

Carnival of Souls is all about atmosphere. Horror movies from the early 1960s had an uncanny knack for being eerie, especially if they were Italian and directed by some Mario fella (more on that someday soon in an upcoming blog). You can punch holes in the story until the cows come home, it doesn't matter. Story isn't our main concern. What's important here is the feeling that something's wrong. You know something's off but you just don't know what it is.

I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the movie's beginning, shall we. Mary Henry and a few of her girlfriends are out joyriding in when suddenly they're challenged to a race by some young male whippersnappers. What's a carload of young females to do? The race is on! Just as it's getting good Mary and her friends crash through the side of a bridge and into the murky, cold water below. Cops arrive, people search, no bodies are found, dead or otherwise. Hours pass by and there, on a muddy ridge, suddenly appears the eerie, ghost-like visage of one cold, wet, and trembling Mary Henry. She's the only survivor.



We catch up with Mary presumably days later just as she's packing up her life and moving to Salt Lake City where she's got a new job playing a church organ. That night, on the desolate road, Mary passes by the abandoned carnival (Utah's real-life Saltaire Amusement Park). She feels a sudden, ghost-like pull to the carnival yet she has no idea why. She's never driven by it before, never even heard of it. Yet, there it is, beckoning her. Here's where Mary comes face to face with this guy...



Mary spends the rest of the movie trying to figure out why this ghost, ghoul, zombie, whatever he is, is always popping up at the most unexpected times and ruining what fragile little semblance of a social life she's managed to cobble together for herself. This is where I stop talking about the plot because, well, A. I don't want to ruin it and B. I find writing out plot synopses pretty boring. You really want to know what happens? Watch the movie.

Now, you're probably asking yourself "hey, that sounds pretty good. Where can I get me one of them?" Well, you're in luck. The Criterion Collection released an absolutely gorgeous print of Carnival of Souls on DVD around 2000 and it's still pretty easy to find, especially if your shopping is of the internet variety. Yeah, you heard me right, THE CRITERION COLLECTION. What? You thought they just released Bergman and Fellini movies over there? Hell no! They recognize an amazing and eerily beautiful horror classic from the early 60s when they see it and so should you.