← Back to Reviews
in
Carnival of Souls
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Final Verdict: [Meh...]
Carnival of Souls
Horror / English / 1962
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
To give an impression of just how massive my watchlist list is, this was 7 months ago: I love the idea of a carnival-esque underworld, Devil's Carnival incited the itch, but it seemed a pale follow-up to Repo!: The Genetic Opera. A brief search and Carnival of Souls is invariably one of the first movies to pop up. Will it scratch that itch?
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
A heads up: I've already got Carnival of Souls on my watchlist.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
No. Predictably, Carnival of Souls spends far too much time dancing around the concept than really indulging in it and by the end of it seems like an especially sub-par Twilight Zone episode.
Basic premise is Main Girl is a passenger in a car, the driver gets into a street race and runs off a bridge into river. She escapes well after you'd expect someone to have drowned and she goes about her life only to find herself stalked by the visage of a mysterious man and compelled to visit an abandoned bathhouse/carnival where I guess Spirited Away is taking place offscreen.
The movie starts off brisk, but after a while the pace slows to a lope while she just goes about her daily life with near constant and increasingly annoying organ music in the background.
A recurring subplot throughout the movie is this scumbag she's sharing a building with who is just the walking embodiment of the sort of person you should never interact with. Sight unseen this guy hits on her and needs to be talked down and told "no" like 5 times before he gets his intrusive ass out of her door. She indulges him in some attention the next morning, but it's transparently obvious that this guy just wants to have sex with her. All she does is give him an increasing laundry list of reasons he shouldn't be interested and turn his attention elsewhere, but he desperate falls all over her like a puppy in heat and for ****'s sake I would hate this guy in real life.
Amid some totally erratic sequences of "Wow, nobody's paying attention to me like I'm a ghost or something, HMMMMMMMM" we take some time setting up the overacting therapist who conveniently explains that he needs to turn his back to her to write down what she says, HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, and eventually she gets fired from her church organist job because she's playing heretical music, HMM- wait. What? What was heretical? Was that fancy organ stuff just the slightest bit too cult-y to your ears, Minister? It's an organ. Or was she playing this offscreen?:
Man, that would've been a ****ing amazing break from the movie.
Anyway, she eventually returns to the carnival, finds it populated by creepy people who swarm her, investigation finds she mysteriously disappeared, and of course they finally pull her car out of the water and HOLY GEE WHIZ SHE WAS DEAD THE WHOLE TIME!
I am absolutely stupefied by this ending, I did not see this coming at all. Completely stunned and shocked that the creators had such vision, such unparalleled craft to end the movie that way. Truly a marvel of it's time that has aged like fine wine.
Basic premise is Main Girl is a passenger in a car, the driver gets into a street race and runs off a bridge into river. She escapes well after you'd expect someone to have drowned and she goes about her life only to find herself stalked by the visage of a mysterious man and compelled to visit an abandoned bathhouse/carnival where I guess Spirited Away is taking place offscreen.
The movie starts off brisk, but after a while the pace slows to a lope while she just goes about her daily life with near constant and increasingly annoying organ music in the background.
A recurring subplot throughout the movie is this scumbag she's sharing a building with who is just the walking embodiment of the sort of person you should never interact with. Sight unseen this guy hits on her and needs to be talked down and told "no" like 5 times before he gets his intrusive ass out of her door. She indulges him in some attention the next morning, but it's transparently obvious that this guy just wants to have sex with her. All she does is give him an increasing laundry list of reasons he shouldn't be interested and turn his attention elsewhere, but he desperate falls all over her like a puppy in heat and for ****'s sake I would hate this guy in real life.
Amid some totally erratic sequences of "Wow, nobody's paying attention to me like I'm a ghost or something, HMMMMMMMM" we take some time setting up the overacting therapist who conveniently explains that he needs to turn his back to her to write down what she says, HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, and eventually she gets fired from her church organist job because she's playing heretical music, HMM- wait. What? What was heretical? Was that fancy organ stuff just the slightest bit too cult-y to your ears, Minister? It's an organ. Or was she playing this offscreen?:
Man, that would've been a ****ing amazing break from the movie.
Been listening to a hell of a lot more metal since that Metal Song Tournament we had in case you can't tell. Sick ****.
Anyway, she eventually returns to the carnival, finds it populated by creepy people who swarm her, investigation finds she mysteriously disappeared, and of course they finally pull her car out of the water and HOLY GEE WHIZ SHE WAS DEAD THE WHOLE TIME!
I am absolutely stupefied by this ending, I did not see this coming at all. Completely stunned and shocked that the creators had such vision, such unparalleled craft to end the movie that way. Truly a marvel of it's time that has aged like fine wine.