The Big Picture Some horror movies, such as Jordan Peele’s Get Out, are immediate commercial and cultural successes. Others, like Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man, take time to seep into the popular consciousness, finding their audience in coming generations. Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls belongs to the latter group, an ultra-low budget effort from 1962 that has all the hallmarks of a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 offering – amateurish acting, stilted dialogue, and some oddball directorial choices.
The second element that makes Carnival of Souls stand out is the strangeness of the set-up. Mary has no memory of the crash or how she survived, and the abruptness of the opening scenes means that we have no background for how she got there either. Clearly terrified at the prospect of an illegal street race, Mary doesn’t speak or interact with her female companions in the car.
Related This '60s Neo-Noir Film Inspired David Lynch, From 'Twin Peaks' to 'Blue Velvet' A psychotic killer torments a young woman in a town called Twin Peaks...sound familiar? As Mary, actor Hilligoss might look like a protagonist from an Alfred Hitchcock movie of the period, but she isn’t framed like one. Psycho’s Marion Crane is another female protagonist driving away from trauma, but she’s killed off less than halfway through the film.
Carnival of Souls is more eerie than scary, in keeping with its themes about humanity and mortality. Along with Hilligoss’ unforgettably idiosyncratic performance, the organ score is its greatest asset, persistent throughout the film, giving a truly strange aspect to mundane scenes. When Mary goes into a fugue state and starts playing the creepy organ music from the soundtrack, the minister is outraged and throws her out of the church.
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