Review of Carnival of Souls (1962) by Simon A — 23 Apr 2006

So a while back I bought a DVD double feature which contained the original Night of the Living Dead and Carnival of Souls.

I watched Living Dead first, since I'd actually HEARD of it and it was the reason I bought the dvd. It was ok. It moved kinda slowly, as I think all movies from the 60s probably do. Barbara's listlessness rather annoyed me... so did Harry Cooper... actually, I think all of the characters annoyed me...

Did anyone else notice in the scene where the zombies are eating the burnt bodies from the truck, that the one "flesh eater" is SO obviously eating a chicken leg? I was like "what human body part are they trying to pass that off as?".

The only thing in the movie that creeped me out (and I didn't realize it did until MUCH later) was little flesh eater Karen.... I'm afraid of children...

And then the end came... I do this thing with the endings of movies where I say "wouldn't it be funny if..." and then I fill in something that I think couldn't POSSIBLY be the ending. So as Ben came upstairs as the redneck cops are outside picking off the zombies, I thought "wouldn't it be funny if they don't even check if he's a zombie and they just shoot him in the head?".

And they did.

I was like "what the f-?" It wasn't as funny as I had first anticipated. Now I know it's a classic movie and you're all probably wondering how I didn't KNOW that was the ending... but I didn't. So I was a little disappointed that none of the characters really survived... then I remembered how much they all annoyed me and I was ok with it.

On to CARNIVAL OF SOULS.

First off, who thought that Corridors of Evil was a good name? That's a stupid name and I'm glad they changed it.

As for the characters... they annoyed me again. Ok, I get it, people were different in the 60s, but COME ON. I liked Mary a little more than I liked Barbara... I think mostly because she kept referring to being a church organist as "just a job." Every job I've ever had was "just a job" and people gave me crap for it too.

I liked the whole complete silence effect that kept happening to Mary. That was neat. I don't understand what it was about that particular tree in the park that made it stop.

Actually, I don't get most of the movie. What was with the zombies? Were they just other people who died in the water? And they were like "Yo, Mary, you're really dead, even though you've interacted with lots of people... you're not really here...".

And what, even though they are dead, they still like to party at the abandoned carnival?

I didn't do a "wouldn't it be funny if..." for this movie because it was pretty obvious she was going to be in the car when they pulled it out of the river. I thought it was interesting that none of the bodies in the car showed ANY sign of decomposition... and the one girl was sorta blinking.... well it was the 60s....

Anyway, those are my thoughts on those two movies. I have to rent the more recent version of Night of the Living Dead, as well as the sequels to the original. Oh and I hear there's a laugh track version of Night of the Living Dead. I'd like to see that too...