Carnival of Souls
Monday October 20, 2008 in 60s cinema | horror
Fairground settings can be deliciously creepy. Whether you find them in fiction (one of the best examples of using the fairground for macabre purpose is Rad Bradbury) or in cinema (try 1967’s Torture Garden from the horror studio Amicus). Even the most cursory of searches will result in other films using fairgrounds, the circus or bizarre museums for their settings. House of Wax (1953) with Vincent Price, Circus of Horrors (1960) or perhaps Circus of Fear (1966). However, there are no truly memorable films using the abandoned carnival as a setting, a place where you really really wouldn’t want to go. Especially alone on a dark night. At least I thought that. This was until I saw Carnival of Souls.
As cult films go, Carnival of Souls is very hard to find, so I was surprised when I discovered that I owned a copy on DVD. Made in 1962 by Herk Harvey, it is an early addition to the American low budget horror genre, a more successful film in the same ilk being Night of the Living Dead. However it’s possibly incorrect to label it as a horror film at all; this is just an incredibly creepy film. It’s scary yet there’s little horror in it. It’s memorable because it is so odd.
The film has a basic premise. The unusually named Candice Hilligoss (Mary Henry) survives what looks like a pretty fatal car crash. Although visibly unscathed, there’s something a little strange about her. The frightened and distant look in her eye, perhaps, the magnetic pull an abandoned funfair appears to be having on her… it’s inevitible what’s going to happen in Carnival of Souls but that’s the fun of the ride. The jumps come in the predicted places, although you may find yourself jumping a little more than you expected.
Candice works as a church organist, allowing Harvey to use the organ for one of the most effective soundtracks you’ll hear. The music isn’t particularly pleasant, but it’s highly original, and the director gets the best effect when the music actually stops. The eerie silences in this film cleverly raise the tension, and it is a very tense film indeed. Candice takes a room in a boarding house and it pursued by a fellow lodger called John. He’s a bit of a creep, descending upon her in the morning with half empty bottles of whiskey, but continues with his painstaking advances even though this woman can only offer a vacant stare or two. (At one point he exclaims That’s just what I need! Get mixed up with some girl who’s off her rocker!)
The scenes with John provide some comic relief for what is essentially, as he predicts, scenes of Candice going off her rocker. Spectacularly. She begins to see the same pale faced man wherever she goes, driving in her car, in her room and memorably in one scene in a Doctor’s consultancy. The first appearances are very fleeting, and the image above is the last of several attempts I made to catch an appropriate still of the film.
Eventually Candice is drawn to the abandoned carnival, where the film wraps up effectively. There’s a final twist that, although not particularly surprising, is still suitably shocking. And the creepy faces blend so well with the organ music that it gives further weight to the argument that low budget films are often the best.
By way of a taster, here’s the original trailer:
As the good man says, you can’t afford to miss it…