gary_sites Not much good I can say this film. Bad acting, make-up, transitions. I just need to find someone to knock me over the head for wasting an hour and 18 minutes on this terrible film.

michaelmunkvold I'm a fan of Herk Hervey's "Carnival of Souls" - which, shot in 1962, was perhaps the first low-budget horror movie sensation - and I don't entirely know why.There are plenty of reasons to hate it. The acting is terrible. It was shot on the cheap, and oh my God, does it show. Hervey's ear for dialogue isn't just tin, it's Formica. The male lead would have in the 60s been called a pervert, and would now be called out on #MeToo.And yet, I can't help but be drawn to this film, because, like all the best horror movies, it speaks to a kind of anxiety that can't be put into words. Ever been nervous about getting home before dark? Ever felt someone walking too close behind you? Ever just felt afraid without knowing why? "Carnival of Souls" vibrates with that anxiety. It's the cinematic version of that queasy, unnerved feeling we all have from time to time, when we feel a terror we don't quite understand; like few movies before or since, it expresses nameless fear.The plot is thin, but gets the job done. Mary Henry (Candace Hildegoss) is the only survivor of a drag racing accident, and moves to a small town in Utah to start over as a church organist. During the trip to her new home, she is haunted by visions of a pale, ghostly figure (Hervey) who seems to mean her harm. This specter refuses to leave her alone, even as she seeks comfort in her daffy (to the point of brain-damaged) landlady (Frances Feist) and a friendly psychiatrist, and fends off the attentions of her drunken, beatnik neighbor (Sidney Berger). Finally, she confronts the apparitions that haunt her, with unexpected results (or, at least, unexpected for anyone who's never seen "The Sixth Sense")."Carnival of Souls" screams "acquired taste". Anyone would be forgiven for laughing at its grade-Z (even for the early 60s) production values. There's the horrible dialogue ("She's a tough-minded little thing", or "That's just what I need, get mixed up with a girl who's off her rocker!") The acting is horrendous, especially that of Hildegoss, who spends the whole film appearing dyspeptic, expressing fear as if it's a stomach-ache. An audience might also be excused for finding the main male character, who spends the entire film basically trying to rape the heroine, so gross as to turn them off. So, you might ask, why do I like this movie? I like it because it gives me goosebumps of the "unknowable fear" kind. Like Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" or the 90s horror film "The Blair Witch Project", it scares us with what we cannot see. Rather than relying on cheap, instantly forgettable jump scares, it slowly builds a sense of vague discomfort, a creepy atmosphere of dread. Plus, it inspired filmmakers like George Romero and David Lynch to make far superior films. Without "Carnival of Souls", there would have been no "Night of the Living Dead" or "Blue Velvet". Whatever its flaws, it's an important film, if only because it paved the way for other, better films to scare the living hell out of us.We watch horror movies to get a good scare. A film like "Carnival of Souls", that scares us on a basic, primal level, is always worth watching, even if it fails in every other way.

DKosty123 Suspence is the key here. While some might think of this as a cheaply made Twilight Zone, it actually has more elements of Psycho, though not as shocking. The movie starts with a drag race sequence with 3 men in one car and 3 women in the other. The 2 cars race onto a dangerous bridge, and the car with the women tragically crashes off the bridge. It lands in muddy and murky water.While teams frantically search to find the car, suddenly Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) appears on shore, escaping from the car. She has no idea where the car or the other 2 girls are. Mary is a church organist, and she has been hired as an organist in another town. So she packs her suitcase and drives to her new town.There, she meets a nice land lady, the churches minister, an amorous neighbor, and a doctor who wants to help her. She keeps seeing creepy men and other souls who frighten her. In her new town, Mary while refusing offers for support from everybody, is strangely drawn to some abandoned buildings outside of town. Here is where she finds a Carnival of Souls.Dorothy Gale would be interested in this, the only movie ever filmed in "Centron Studios - 1621 W 9th Street, Lawrence, Kansas, USA". The film holds the viewer with all the strange happenings, and finally leads to an ending which makes sense, but yet is still kind of creepy. For a film with a Psycho sized budget, and much lesser known cast (most of the cast has done 5 roles or fewer in their career), this is pretty well done. The minister in the new town had the most well known small role in a movie called "Paper Moon." Worth a look for anyone looking for something totally different for 90 minutes.

frankwiener Spoiler alert! If you haven't seen this film and don't want the end spoiled for you, don't read this review. I found it impossible to write a review for this film without spoiling the ending.I am surprised by the number of reviewers who totally ignored the ending, which, for me, revealed all that had transpired before it. In my view, Mary had reached the point where life meets death. In our "living" time, the action following the accident on the bridge was perhaps 60 or 70 minutes, but for Mary, who had reached the point where life meets death, it could have been an instant or an eternity as there is no similar dimension of time during or after death. As she was a victim of drowning, the haunted Saltair Pavilion on Salt Lake was significant to her watery end, as were the "souls" who appeared from the water and from unknown, undefined realms beyond the living.For me, all that transpired after the accident occurred in a state of near death or after death. In her transition from life to death, Mary traveled through different phases, including alternating periods when she was totally and physically disconnected from the world that we know while we are alive. Even the boarding house in Salt Lake City was a kind of a death state. Mrs. Thompson, the landlady, was nice enough and even reminded me of Beryl Mercer, who played Jimmy Cagney's sweet mom in "The Public Enemy", but the house and its atmosphere was strangely quiet and lifeless. John Linden, the sleazy neighbor, seemed like death warmed over too. Even before the accident, Mary seemed totally disconnected from her teenage companions in the car. What was she doing with them? She seemed older, more mature, and totally out of place sitting with them during the drag race. Even in life, Mary was isolated from the world around her at least to some degree."I'm never coming back," she snapped coldly to her boss at the Kansas organ company, and she meant it because she was already dead. "You cannot live in isolation from the human race, you know," warns her new boss at the church in Utah, but Mary was already dead by then, so his words meant nothing to her. During the life-to-death transition or after death, nothing meant much to her except for the shocking images of the ghouls, who were either already dead or in a state of transition, and the haunting presence of the eerie Saltair Pavilion, which was as isolated from the world and as absent of life as Mary was during her life-to-death transition, and then, finally, after death. When she was recovered in the submerged car at the end, was Mary not dead?The entire atmosphere of this movie, including the haunting organ music and the creepy ghoul appearances, was extremely effective in conveying a sense of what it must be like to transition from life to death. In this portrayal of such a transition, the journey occurred in different stages, some of which repeated, such as the incidents when Mary was totally removed from the physical world as we know it in the department store and at the bus station. Gradually, more and more souls, who are already a part of the world of the dead, appear before her. Since Mary is either dying or already dead, she never travels to Salt Lake City and to the Saltair Pavilion in the world of the living, only in the world of life-to-death transition and, finally, of death itself. When I view this movie, I feel as though I have entered a terrifying, mysterious world that exists beyond the life that we know. I am experiencing a vision of the world that could possibly exist as we leave this life. It is a very unique and unforgettable adventure. I think that the writer, John Clifford, and the director, Herk Harvey, were brilliant for what they attempted to accomplish and for what they succeeded in achieving on such a tiny budget, and I loved Candace Hilligoss as poor, tormented Mary, may she finally rest in peace.