Carnival of Souls (1962)

In producer/director Herk Harvey's (his sole feature film) disturbing, low-budget independent horror film, the spooky and haunting cult zombie classic was notable for its many effective and foreboding scenes of stylistic terror. It masterfully portrayed the psychological despair and loneliness of a lost young woman who then began to have visions of a ghostly netherworld. A story written by both Harvey and his script-writer John Clifford resulted in the film.

It has been acknowledged by George A. Romero that this film inspired the first of his "Dead" series of zombie films - Night of the Living Dead (1968). In homage to the film, it was remade by director Adam Grossman and was originally titled Wes Craven Presents Carnival of Souls (1998).

The plot of the macabre B-movie, often praised for Maurice Prather's atmospheric cinematography, was very similar to the late January, 1960 30-minute TV episode of The Twilight Zone titled "The Hitch-Hiker" (with Inger Stevens), and also to the short French film Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1961). Its plot twist resembled many other films about death-dreams ("It was all a dream") and/or hallucinatory fantasies at the point of death (or in purgatory).

With a budget of only $33,000 dollars and shot in three weeks time on location in Kansas and Utah, this early amateurish horror-zombie-mystery film took years to gain a solid cult audience (through midnight and drive-in showings, and late-night TV broadcasts). The film was re-released and re-evaluated by the late 1980s with the release of a restored version in 1989 and film-festival and theatrical showings, and further DVD releases in the 2000s.

• in the film's opening sequence set in rural Kansas, young Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss in her film debut) with her two girlfriends (Sharon Scoville and Mary Ann Harris) were goaded by a male drag racer (Larry Sneegas) and his buddy into a speed race along winding back country roads
• the contest resulted in the car (holding three females in the car's front seat) crashing off a bridge into a muddy river and landing upside down; as the males looked down at the car in the water, the text of the title screen floated in and out and rippled, followed by further slanted and disoriented credits shown over the background

Mary's Imagined Survival (Spoiler)

• a search party was organized to locate the submerged car but failed to find anything after three hours, and it was presumed that all three occupants of the car had drowned; but then mysteriously, the barefoot, bedraggled and very muddy Mary emerged unscathed and unharmed from the water (but didn't appear wet) and climbed up a sandy embankment; it appeared that she was the sole crash survivor (?); however, she was very disoriented and unable to answer questions after the horrific car accident
• as the story progressed after her near-fatal incident, Mary demonstrated her playing skill on a gigantic pipe organ as the organ factory boss (Tom McGinnis), a carpenter (Forbes Caldwell) and others listened; she learned that an organ made in the factory had been acquired by a church in the Salt Lake City area of Utah that was looking for a new church organist; Mary had already inquired about employment, and was planning to relocate, but told the boss that she wasn't religious: "It's just a job for me"; he offered some words of advice: "It takes more than intellect to be a musician. Put your soul into it a little, okay?"; she vowed: "I'm never coming back"
• she took one last drive over the bridge where the accident happened before leaving town; while on the trip, Mary listened to a music station, but as she crossed into Utah and it turned dark, she scanned her radio dial and was only able to tune into ominous and unsettling organ music (by composer Gene Moore) that apparently wasn't from the air waves but was playing in her head
• she experienced one of many weird, disturbing, and creepy visions of a ghostly figure (a recently dead zombie?); a ghoulish Spectral Man (director Harvey) with darkened eye sockets and a deathly pale face first glared at her with an eerie stare through the passenger window; she also viewed him through her front windshield standing in the middle of the road; the shocking sight of him caused her to veer off the road; however, she was still able to proceed onward
• after stopping for gas in the twilight hours, Mary asked the attendant (Dan Palmquist) about a lakeside structure she had noticed a few miles away; he pointed into the dark distance and told her about the history of the "pretty ritzy place in the old days"; now, it was an abandoned, condemned, and closed-down salt-water bathhouse and Pavilion dance hall that had also become a carnival-amusement park at one time [Note: The Pavilion was in Salt Lake City's Saltair Amusement Park first built in 1893 on the southern shore of the Great Salt Lake, and rebuilt multiple times due to fire. The spooky locale was often abandoned due to the receding lake and changing economic conditions and tastes.]
• once she arrived in the city, Mary rented an apartment in a rooming house from the garrulous Mrs. Thomas (Frances Feist) with only one other tenant - John Linden (Sidney Berger), a warehouse worker who began to show some crude but romantic interest in Mary
• she visited a local church to see about the job opening, where she spoke to the church Minister (Art Ellison) about becoming their new church organist; after playing the organ, she accepted a ride from the Minister to return to the lakeside Pavilion, but once they were there, he warned her not to enter; the area was gated and off-limits and one could be accused of trespassing
• Mary returned back to the rooming house, where she claimed to her landlady that she had seen the pale-faced Spectral Man in the first floor's foyer; Mrs. Thomas claimed that Mary must have been envisioning things
• during a visit to a department store in town to buy a dress from a saleslady (Pamela Ballard), Mary experienced a moment when she became disconnected, withdrawn and detached from reality; she was invisible and inaudible to others in the store and seemed to be caught between the real world and a dream-world
• outside the store at a drinking fountain in the nearby park, she was relieved that things seemed normal again; but then she had another vision or hallucination of the ghoulish, black-suited apparition, although she suspected it might only be in her imagination; during a consultation with a physician (who claimed he wasn't a psychiatrist) in his office, Dr. Samuels (Stan Levitt) suggested that her hysterical fears or worries were possibly a result of her car-crash trauma and injury
• Mary suspected that her persistent visions of the dark figure might be connected to the strange pavilion outside of town; she returned, but found nothing unusual
• during organ practice in the church as she played a traditional hymn, she suddenly found herself compelled to play an eerie musical piece; trance-like, she also experienced more visions of the man (with darkened eye sockets) and other similar-looking souls dancing in the Pavilion and assaulting her; the Minister was appalled by her offensive sacrilegious music selection and banished Mary from the church
• having lost her job and scared of being alone, Mary allowed neighboring lodger John to take her to a nightclub and bar for the evening; once back in her room, as he insisted on staying with her and she rejected his unwanted assaultive attack, Mary experienced another phantom vision of the ghoulish man reflected in her dresser's hand mirror; she became crazed and hysterical, and scared him off thinking that she was possessed; for the remainder of the night, the insanely-behaving Mary rearranged her room's furniture, causing her landlady Mrs. Thomas (who became concerned and had spoken to her doctor) to dismiss her
• Mary drove off, but soon after she experienced transmission problems with her car and returned to the gas station near the pavilion for repairs; she insisted on remaining in the car as it was hoisted up in the air on a hydraulic lift; in the film's sole "dream-within-a-dream" sequence, while the attendant took care of a gas customer, the car was suddenly lowered back down in the dark garage by "the Man," and her locked passenger door was opened; as she fled down the street, she again felt invisible and couldn't hear any sounds in her quasi-parallel universe; she frantically entered a bus station, but the ticket attendant and others didn't hear or notice her when she asked for directions and inquired about bus information; she ran onto an eastbound departing bus from Gate 9 that was announced by a monotone voice, but was horrified that the occupants on the bus - the same otherworldly apparitions that she had seen dancing in the Pavilion during organ practice - grabbed at her and chased after her (to the accompaniment of non-stop organ music)
• Mary returned to the park that she had visited earler after shopping for dresses, and was relieved that things appeared normal; she then returned to Dr. Samuel's office, but screamed in reaction when the doctor - actually the black-suited "Man" with his back to her - swiveled his high-backed chair around to reveal himself; it was then suddenly shown that Mary was actually sitting in the car on the garage station's lift - everything had been a nightmarish day-dream
• she pulled out of the station and was inexorably drawn to drive toward the Pavilion; at this point in the story, she was lured to enter into the shadowy Pavilion's ballroom during a macabre party; Mary literally entered into the world of the dead inside the decaying dance hall; she saw a surreal "dance of death" performed by zombie-like ghouls or souls (a "carnival of souls") that she had already seen in her visions and on the bus; they were twirling around as dance partners; the camera motion was sped up while the soundtrack was distorted with laughter; Mary realized that the ghoulish Spectral Man, her actual doppelganger or double, was dancing with a ghoulish version of herself !!

Mary Warily Watching 'Dance of Death' Couples inside an Abandoned Ballroom in the Climax of "Carnival of Souls"

• she screamed in fright and ran off - she was chased by many of the undead, dark-eyed dancing partners all around the pavilion and then to the beach, where she fell down during the pursuit - her collapsed body was completely surrounded by the heads of the zombies staring down upon her; the next day at the Pavilion, Dr. Samuels, the Minister, and the police went searching for Mary who had mysteriously vanished

Mary Chased Around Pavilion by Dancers

• in the revelatory final scene's plot twist, the search party surveyed the sand where Mary had fallen, with tracks of footprints in the sand leading up to where she had collapsed - with a large imprint of her body and an opened handprint; however, there was no sign of Mary's body; the Sheriff announced how Mary's car had been found at the Pavilion's gates nearby [Note: This scene was the most incongruous one in the film - if her body was examined in Utah, how could it also show up in the last and final scene back in Kansas?]

Car Dredged Up

Twist-Ending: Mary's Corpse in Dredged-Out Car

• in Kansas, the police search recovered Mary's submerged car (with Mary's corpse inside along with her two friends in the front seat) - it was partially dredged out of the river; Mary's dreams, imagined visions and trances involving the ghouls in a dance of death were due to her hallucinations during her death experience and entry into the spirit world