Runtime: 78 minutes
Directed by: Herk Harvey
Starring: Candace Hilligoss, Frances Feist, Sidney Berger, Art Ellison, Stan Levitt
From: Hartcourt Productions/Centron Corporation
A movie that happens to prove a point about how lousy modern Hollywood is. Unlike usual, it was conversation on a messageboard seen after watching this for review that gave me the idea to make a comparison. That discussion concerned how bad modern Hollywood is, both in general and specifically how there's overreaction to fan reaction. I agreed with practically everything that was brought up and I chimed in also. Compared with many movies we get from the studios (of all genres), Carnival of Souls shows them up.
Made by a crew that mainly created industrial/educational short subjects, for a low budget and utilizing many guerilla filmmaking techniques, Souls is a unique eerie product that was far from a hit at the time but in subsequent years became a cult favorite. Mary Henry is a young lady who is a passenger in a car that crashes into a river. She is lucky to crawl out & survive yet when she moves to Utah and becomes a church organist, she is followed by spooky figures, a guy at a boardinghouse that would be “canceled” in 2021 & her world in general becomes quite bizarre. There is a literal carnival (abandoned) where part of the film is set at. Candace Hilligoss is great as Mary.
It is a weird surreal journey which is exactly the sort of motion picture that'd inspire David Lynch... as Lynch has actually admitted as such. It has for certain inspired plenty of subsequent genre efforts, some of them outright ripping off major plot points I dare not spoil here. With not a lot of resources the atmosphere is so unsettling it makes Carnival incredibly memorable. As the lead plays organ, it should not be a stunning revelation to hear that this instrument comprises the score-and that is another huge key in the film's effectiveness. It sets the mood perfectly-no way would this be as effective if not for the contribution of Gene Moore-then again, the cinematography from Maurice Prather was also lovely.
At least before director Herk Harvey passed away, the movie received recognition for its unique qualities & chilling atmosphere. This public domain favorite is easy to track down but if you can see a nice print of this, that is preferable. As stated at the beginning, this is plenty more effective at providing entertainment than way too much of the product we have received from Hollywood in recent years.
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