Carnival of Souls
| Carnival of Souls | |
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Pressbook cover art
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| Directed by | Herk Harvey |
| Produced by | Herk Harvey |
| Written by | Herk Harvey John Clifford |
| Starring |
Candace Hilligoss Frances Feist Sidney Berger Art Ellison |
| Music by | Gene Moore |
| Cinematography | Maurice Prather |
| Edited by | Bill de Jarnette Dan Palmquist |
| Distributed by | Herts-Lion International Corp. |
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Release date
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Running time
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84 minutes (director's cut) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Carnival of Souls is a 1962 American independent horror film starring Candace Hilligoss. The film was produced, co-written and directed by Herk Harvey for an estimated $33,000. Carnival of Souls was Harvey's only feature film, and did not gain widespread attention when originally released as a double feature with The Devil's Messenger. Today, however, it is regarded as a cult classic. Its plot follows a young woman whose life is disturbed after a car accident, finding herself drawn to the pavilion of an abandoned carnival.
Set to an organ score by Gene Moore, Carnival of Souls relies more on atmosphere than on special effects to create a mood of unease and foreboding. The film has a large cult following and is occasionally screened at film and Halloween festivals. It has been cited as an important influence on the films of both David Lynch and George A. Romero.
Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) is riding in a car with two other young women when some men challenge them to a drag race. As they speed across a bridge, the women's car plunges over the side into the river. The police spend three hours dragging the murky, fast-running water without success. Mary miraculously surfaces, but she cannot remember how she survived.
Mary then drives to Utah, where she has been hired as a church organist. At one point, she can get nothing on her car radio but strange organ music. She passes a large, abandoned pavilion sitting all by itself on the shores of the Great Salt Lake; it seems to beckon to her in the twilight. Shortly thereafter, while she is speeding along a deserted stretch of road, a ghoulish, pasty-faced figure (never identified, but called "The Man" in dialogue and played by director Herk Harvey, uncredited) replaces her reflection in the passenger window and stares at her. When The Man suddenly appears in front of her, she swerves off the road. At a gas station, the attendant tells her the pavilion was first a bathhouse, then a dance hall, and finally a carnival before shutting down.
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Wikipedia