Fantasia Obscura: ‘Carnival of Souls’

There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.

Sometimes, you don’t hear enough about people trying something new…

Carnival of Souls (1962)
Distributed by: Herts-Lion International Corp.
Directed by: Herk Harvey

Everyone needs a break now and then.

A sabbatical, an extended vacation, a leave of absence, these are opportunities to step away and recharge. Some people who take these long breaks use the opportunity to try something new, maybe workshop a project in their back pocket.

So when Herk Harvey, who directed over forty industrial film shorts at Centron Corporation by this time, took his vacation, he ended up giving us this:

Please note that there will be spoilers from the film; yes, they pretty well signal what’s going to happen in the trailer above, but professional courtesy requires issuing a warning anyway…

We open cold in Kansas, where three women are in a car. Up alongside them comes another car, from which one of the guys (Larry Sneegas) challenges the women to a drag race. Everyone in the first car is excited, or at least in the case of Mary Henry (Candice Hilligoss), acquiescing with a detached smile.

Anyone who’s familiar with such teen tragedy songs as “Dead Man’s Curve” and “Last Kiss” knows where this is going: During the race, as the two cars race across a bridge, the car with the women in it gets bumped and goes over the side into the water.

From there, we go into the opening credits, superimposed over footage of the river as the organ score by Gene Moore kicks in. Once that’s out of the way, we watch helplessly as the local authorities try and recover the car. The prospects of recovery from the fast flowing river seem pretty grim as they look over the treacherous waters…

…and yet, Mary comes ashore, looking the worse for wear but otherwise fine. She has no memory of how she got out or what happened to the other women riding with her, and doesn’t refer back to that horrible moment for the rest of the picture.

In fact, her main focus now is concentrating on her job, as a professional organist taking a gig at a church in Salt Lake City. She seems cold and mercenary when talking about the opportunity, focusing solely on how it’s just a job.

Considering what happens to her on the drive out there, she should probably have been a bit more focused:

She makes her way to the boarding house run by Mrs. Thomas (Frances Feist) to set up her room, across the hall from the other border there, the alcoholic working-class sleaze John Linden (Sidney Berger). She soon meets her new boss, the minister of her church (Art Ellison), who tries to get her to feel more at home, and offers to show her around the parish.

During the drive, she asks about the ruin she saw on the way into town (the second Saltair Pavillion), and makes a stop there to see it better for herself. The old dancehall-amusement park has seen much better days, and yet Mary wants to wander around in it, which the minister dissuades her from doing.

After Mary plays hot and cold with John, to a rhythm that seems random, she settles into her new surroundings. At one point, she goes shopping for a new wardrobe, which seems fairly normal until all the ambient sound around her quiets and she finds that no one can see or hear her.

It’s actually here that the film stops being a run-of-the-mill cheapie horror and does something interesting. By removing all sound other than any coming from her or the score, we get a strong sense of the otherworldly in play using a very simple but effective practical effect. It’s used in such a manner that the audience suddenly takes more notice of what’s going on.

In terms of paying attention, Mary soon gets reconnected with the rest of the world when the sound comes back. Mary is on the verge of a breakdown after having all sound shut off, but thankfully a passing physician, Dr. Samuels (Stan Levitt), is there to offer his help. Mary, however, is in denial about still being in shock, and ignoring doctor’s orders suggestions tries to lose herself in her organ practice:

Things quickly spiral down from there. Her playing without focus as she was summoned by the principal apparition (Harvey) ticks off the Minister, who asks for her resignation. Her dinner date with John fails spectacularly as she runs from hot to cold to full panic when she sees the apparition again, and as soon as she’s herself she departs Mrs. Thomas’ lodgings.

She tries to pick up and go, but once again, the sound cuts off, and this time it’s not just the silence that freaks Mary out:

With this poor girl having come close to death encountering these ghosts everywhere, you’d be tempted to guess that she’s going through this because she doesn’t realize that she’s been dead since before the credits started…

And you’d be right, that’s exactly what’s going on, as she disappears right before the last shot of the film, of the car pushed over the bridge is finally pulled up from the river.

It’s fairly obvious where the pedestrian script by John Clifford is heading. The trope of the person not realizing that they are deceased had been used before in works by Mark Twain and Washington Irving, among others, and in the years since with Jacob’s Ladder, Ghost, The Sixth Sense, and The Others, modern audiences can spot the plot twist almost instantly.

Herk Harvey

It’s with Harvey’s direction that the films finds its own strengths. As noted, the silence around Mary at times is very effective in evoking a terrifying otherworldliness when it’s used, and forces the audience take notice. His experience doing industrial films (which after this he’d continue to direct until 1983) serves him well in being able to pull together a smooth shoot out of which a well-shot movie resulted.

For the most part Harvey brings everything together on a budget of $33,000 (the equivalent of $350,00 in today’s value) that looks more polished than a film shot for ten times that amount. He succeeds despite Hilligoss’ uneven work in the lead; her performance feels out of sync with what’s going on around her, though this could possibly be explained in-film as her ghost not accepting that she was dead. On the other hand, Harvey does have working for him sound from Ed Down and Don Jessup, as noted before, and More’s score. Moore’s use of the organ is a natural choice, as the instrument lends itself well to both horror and carnival settings, as well as being Mary’s instrument, tying it in to the action on screen.

For a film that was a side project made by people who were deep in the industrial film scene, it displays its heritage well as a sharp, straightforward presentation. And like most industrial films, the pic premiered to little interest and disappeared quickly, then became recognized years later after repeat screenings on late night TV.

You could say after finding (un)life in a secondary market, that this film caught a nice big break…