Carnival of Souls (1962)

Directed by

Herk Harvey

Genre

horror film, psychological horror fiction, ghost film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 24m

Rated

NR

Rating

6.9 of 10 from 538 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

After a car accident, a young woman moves to a new city where she struggles to connect with people. She becomes obsessed with an abandoned carnival and is followed by a silent ghoul. Her grip on reality starts to slip away.

unsettlingdreamlikeslow-burnbleakeerielonelyatmosphericsurreal

What happens

Carnival of Souls is a 1962 American neo-noir psychological horror film produced and directed by Herk Harvey and written by John Clifford from a story by Clifford and Harvey, and starring Candace Hilligoss. Its plot follows Mary Henry, a young woman whose life is disturbed after a car accident. She relocates to a new city, where she finds herself unable to assimilate with the locals, and becomes drawn to the pavilion of an abandoned carnival. Herk Harvey also appears in the film as a ghoulish stranger who stalks her throughout. The film is set to an organ score by Gene Moore. Filmed in Lawrence, Kansas, and Salt Lake City, Carnival of Souls was shot on a budget of $33,000, and Harvey employed various guerrilla filmmaking techniques to finish the production. The film is loosely based on the French short An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1961), an adaptation of the 1890 story of the same name by Ambrose Bierce, and Harvey was inspired by the visual style of filmmakers such as Ingmar Bergman and Jean Cocteau. Carnival of Souls was Harvey's only feature film, and did not gain widespread attention when originally released as a double feature with the now mostly forgotten The Devil's Messenger in 1962. Since the 1980s, the film has been noted by critics and film scholars for its cinematography and foreboding atmosphere. The film has a large cult following and is occasionally screened at film and Halloween festivals. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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