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Carnival of Souls (1962) - Directed by Herk Harvey
Genres: Supernatural Horror, Mystery, Psychological Horror
It's time to play no one's favorite game: Who's Ever Heard of Herk Harvey!? Well, his situation is a little bit like Vashti Bunyan's: record one album, doesn't kick off, gets discouraged. There are two differences here, though. A: Herk Harvey made a single movie. B: Vashti would continue her career after being rediscovered thirty years later, but Herk never finished another movie. Let's take a look at his one low-budget failure turned cult classic: Carnival of Souls, which I only watched for the sake of comparing this original to the remake which I need to watch for the second Hall of Infamy.
Young and beautiful Mary is caught in a car accident during a street race. The car fell off a bridge, and she seems to be the only survivor. After moving away to be a church organist, she begins having hallucinations of a mysterious man with zombie eyes, and the hallucinations get worse and worse until she starts to realize that there's a reason that spirits may be after her.
This movie had a VERY strong sense of spookiness and mystery, probably too strong. This movie kind of played out like a Twilight Zone episode, but it should've probably been one instead of a movie, because 80 minutes is a bit long for this. It has very little of an actual story. Many of the characters that surround her barely have any character themselves or even influence in her life and the strange events surrounding her, and the movie's mostly focused on cinematic spectacle and mystery.
However, this is not to say that this is a bad movie. It's rare that something so lacking in a story can be so mezmerizing. It isn't just about the camera and the surrealism. Our leading lady, Candace Hilligoss as Mary, is FLAWLESS in her roll. The most challenging thing horror actors can do is recreate fear. But Hilligoss doesn't just scream. She feels. She feels so well that I felt it for her sometimes. I have never seen such realistic expressions of fear in horror movies, and I've seen over 200 of them, including the entire Alien franchise. How do you beat Sigourney Weaver? The lack of story was easily made up for by the finest horror performance I can think of, save maybe Ellen Bustyn's performance in The Exorcist.
Well, the lacking story lets this movie take a big hit from my critical perspective, but there's also a lot to love while watching this. This movie is incredibly haunting on a supernatural and psychological level, and should be taken as an example of how to do the fear factor correctly for any aspiring horror writer. I wish she was in many more movies, but apparently she only made a few (likely because she was raising a family?) But I am so glad I even heard about her through the underwritten but still hypnotic Carnival of Souls, which deserves a remake based on its strengths, even though the 1998 film may not be the one it deserves. And it's also a shame Herk Harvey never directed another movie, because he had the skill, no joke.
Genres: Supernatural Horror, Mystery, Psychological Horror
It's time to play no one's favorite game: Who's Ever Heard of Herk Harvey!? Well, his situation is a little bit like Vashti Bunyan's: record one album, doesn't kick off, gets discouraged. There are two differences here, though. A: Herk Harvey made a single movie. B: Vashti would continue her career after being rediscovered thirty years later, but Herk never finished another movie. Let's take a look at his one low-budget failure turned cult classic: Carnival of Souls, which I only watched for the sake of comparing this original to the remake which I need to watch for the second Hall of Infamy.
Young and beautiful Mary is caught in a car accident during a street race. The car fell off a bridge, and she seems to be the only survivor. After moving away to be a church organist, she begins having hallucinations of a mysterious man with zombie eyes, and the hallucinations get worse and worse until she starts to realize that there's a reason that spirits may be after her.
This movie had a VERY strong sense of spookiness and mystery, probably too strong. This movie kind of played out like a Twilight Zone episode, but it should've probably been one instead of a movie, because 80 minutes is a bit long for this. It has very little of an actual story. Many of the characters that surround her barely have any character themselves or even influence in her life and the strange events surrounding her, and the movie's mostly focused on cinematic spectacle and mystery.
However, this is not to say that this is a bad movie. It's rare that something so lacking in a story can be so mezmerizing. It isn't just about the camera and the surrealism. Our leading lady, Candace Hilligoss as Mary, is FLAWLESS in her roll. The most challenging thing horror actors can do is recreate fear. But Hilligoss doesn't just scream. She feels. She feels so well that I felt it for her sometimes. I have never seen such realistic expressions of fear in horror movies, and I've seen over 200 of them, including the entire Alien franchise. How do you beat Sigourney Weaver? The lack of story was easily made up for by the finest horror performance I can think of, save maybe Ellen Bustyn's performance in The Exorcist.
Well, the lacking story lets this movie take a big hit from my critical perspective, but there's also a lot to love while watching this. This movie is incredibly haunting on a supernatural and psychological level, and should be taken as an example of how to do the fear factor correctly for any aspiring horror writer. I wish she was in many more movies, but apparently she only made a few (likely because she was raising a family?) But I am so glad I even heard about her through the underwritten but still hypnotic Carnival of Souls, which deserves a remake based on its strengths, even though the 1998 film may not be the one it deserves. And it's also a shame Herk Harvey never directed another movie, because he had the skill, no joke.