Review of Carnival of Souls (1962) by Lucy W — 12 Feb 2013

I really did not care for this movie as much as other people have. Despite others calling it a "Horror Classic" I just cannot call it such. However I must say the bigger picture that it presents is something that I could appreciate.

I will say this, if you watch this movie just for the visual display of chiller or thriller or horror, then you simply won't find it. The whole idea this film conveys is something much larger. The plot is somewhat lacking, it starts out with three men in a car who entice a woman in a car with her two friends to race her. My main problem with that is logic, as I doubt women in the sixties were particularly edgy enough to take part in a drag race. Well the race is short lived as the female topples over a bridge which to my surprise displayed a pretty conniving and shocking car scene where the car fell into the water. So points for style there. The authorities come and it becomes a search party to find the car in the murky water and hope for survivors. Well at this time one women emerges from the water and it is deemed that she is the soul survivor of the accident. At this point I would like to say that the title "Carnival of Souls" is incredibly misleading as the entire time I was waiting for a huge carnival scene in which madness and mayhem were in ample supply. But to my dismay there was nothing of the sort so... I guess *SPOILER* there.

But what a want to restate is that the physical plot was lacking, not the abstract idea of the story itself. It reminded me of a story entitled "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" but I have no idea if they borrowed from that or what, it just reminded me of it. The abstract idea is madness and how one can be overcome with it. Another gripe I have is the audio but no points off there because the film is quite low budget and it may have just been my copy of the film. I do recommend seeing this but you really have to analyze everything when its over or else you're not going to get the full effect of this film. The film itself is at times somewhat difficult to handle because not much is really happening to maintain your interest but I will say for me it was all about the idea at the end. The character had a job at a church, she played the organ and when asked about her job she simply concluded it was merely a job and nothing more. The aspect within that is belittling her faith as she see's it just at face value. As the film progresses the things around her slowly begin to creep in as weird faces close in on her and everything around her just seems to ignore her.

I do not wish to spoil to much but the idea if that if you attempt to belittle your faith and act like its nothing to you, then everything around you is going to lose value and close in on you.

I am really impressed with the overall abstract notion of this film, but I feel the way in which they presented did not go over so well, I mean this film had a few really good things going for it. There was a very good use of makeup depicting the eerie people in Candace's(Main Character) surroundings, the atmosphere was quite chilling, and the scenery was dark and held the story together. But the main problem here is the attention factor, not much happens from scene to scene and that costs this film a few points.

But all in all its good for what its worth. I wouldn't consider it a true "Horror Classic" but definitely worth a watch if you want to wonder some of life's tough question and gather some insight.