Day 63: Carnival of Souls (1962)

Herk Harvey’s “Carnival of Souls” is the sort of film you expected to find playing at a small drive-in movie theater on a late summer night and not exactly in “The Criterion Collection.” Schlocky in both its acting and script, “Carnival” isn’t exactly a film of art house quality, but, nevertheless, it is a defining work when it comes to its genre, bringing a whole new way of looking at a person’s deterioration into madness.

In “Carnival of Souls,” we follow Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss), a talented young organist, who becomes the soul survivor of a car accident and subsequent drowning when she surfaces from the water hours after the initial incident. Though the whole town is perplexed by her sudden reappearance, Mary remembers nothing of the accident and soon moves away, taking a job as a church organist in Salt Lake City.

But the fate of the accident and its aftermath won’t seem to leave poor Mary alone and soon she grows cold to all those around her, disconnecting from both her new church community, who would like to know her better, and an alcoholic neighbor, who continually pursues her for a date. Disinterested in the world, Mary only finds solace at an old abandoned carnival pavilion, where the empty buildings draw her in and bring her an odd sense of peace.

Though life seems to be heading back on track, Mary suddenly begins to see the image of a pale man with bleach white hair stalking her every move. Though she tries to find help, no one else sees the man and Mary begins slipping deeper and deeper into a world all her own as this mysterious being grows closer by the second and leads her once again to the abandoned carnival.

Filmed over a three week period and at a budget of only $33,000, “Carnival of Souls” was a horror piece made, like so many others of its time, on the fly and with a long list of amateur and local talent. His only feature length film, director and producer Herk Harvey primarily worked in Kansas for the Centron Corporation, creating industrial and educational films, but, while on vacation in Salt Lake City, he came up with the idea of “Carnival” after seeing the abandoned Saltair Pavilion, which now has been redone and is, once again, in use.

Though “Carnival of Souls” isn’t exactly a great film, falling more in line with “Mystery Science” than “Masterpiece” theater, it does hold its own as being one of the first to explore certain aspects of the psychological horror genre. Throughout the film, Mary is seen growing colder by the minute, finding no joy in both the presence of people or the idea of dating. It is, in fact, like she has lost a part of her soul after the accident and continues to lose it bit by bit the longer she walks the earth. With this is mind, Harvey delivers a truly terrifying scene where Mary finds herself amongst a large crowd in the city, but nobody acknowledges her presence when she seeks help from the pale man who pursues her. It is as if, by her sheer desire to be isolated she has created a world where she no longer exists- definitely a chilling notion and something we all instinctually fear.

“Carnival of Souls” is definitely a cult B-movie film, garnering an audience usually once a year as a Halloween favorite, but it certainly is a defining film of its genre for understanding of how to pander towards the inner fears of its audience without simply going for the easily shocking or grotesque. For that alone, it deserves a watch from dedicated horror fans and the appreciation of cinema’s society as a whole.

To learn more about “Carnival of Souls,” check out Criterion’s pager here.

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