Carnival of Souls

Carnival of Souls

Carnival of Souls (1962)

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He made workplace-safety reels, driver's-ed shorts, educational filmstrips. He drove past a rotting lakeside pavilion and could not stop picturing dead figures dancing inside it.

So Herk Harvey gathered his industrial-film crew, about five people total, hired one professional actress, and shot a horror movie on his vacation time. He made CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962) for roughly $33,000 in three weeks.

A church organist walks away from a car crash, takes a job in a strange town, and finds herself pulled toward that lakeside pavilion by a pale, silent man who will not stop following her.

Harvey wanted, in his words, the look of a Bergman and the feel of a Cocteau. With almost no money and a wheezing organ score, he got it.

It played theatrically at the bottom of double bills, then drifted onto late-night television, where it eventually grew into one of the most influential horror films ever made.

George Romero named it an influence on Night of the Living Dead. David Lynch's dream-logic dread traces back to it. Much of modern art-horror owes it a debt.

Harvey never made another feature. He went back to making educational films for the rest of his life. And the pale man who haunts the picture, the ghoul at the pavilion, is Harvey himself.

About the Film

She Escaped Death. Now It Wants Her Back!

Directed By
Herk Harvey
Runtime
78 minutes
Released
November 2, 1962
Certification
NR
Country
United States of America
Starring
Candace Hilligoss, Herk Harvey, Sidney Berger, Frances Feist, Art Ellison
More Credits
Genres
Horror, Mystery, Fantasy
Language
English
Origin
US
Studios
Harcourt Productions, Centron Corporation
Written By
Herk Harvey, John Clifford
Produced By
Herk Harvey
Cinematography
Maurice Prather
Music
Gene Moore
Also Starring
Stan Levitt, Tom McGinnis, Forbes Caldwell, Dan Palmquist, Bill de Jarnette
Budget
$30,000

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    3. Will Johnston Frankly, I couldn’t care less what Tarantino has to say about anything. I saw one of Tarantino’s movies once. At the time none of us knew who he was and we were unaware that he was supposed to be a “genius” filmmaker. Consequently, we all thought that his movie was so terrible that we switched it off after about 20 minutes.

      4. Will Johnston Something called “Reservoir Dogs”. Everybody on land insists that it is a “masterpiece” but we were out at sea on a ship and no one had informed any of us of that fact so we considered it to so bad that it was unwatchable. The story was repulsive, all of the characters were repulsive and there was not one character in it with whom the viewer could sympathize. That seems to me to be a pretty good definition of an “unwatchable” movie. Everyone agreed that it was so bad that we all agreed to switch it off after about the first 20 minutes or so. But, as I said, nobody had told any of us that it was supposed to have been a “masterpiece” or that Quentin Tarantino was supposed to be a “genius” film maker, so we were completely unaware of those facts.

    1. Johnny ConstantinoYes–and a television commercial circa 1970 in which she plays the wife of an adoring husband (her real-life husband as it turns out) who crows, “my wife–I think I’ll keep her,” which drove the women’s movement nuts (all the way down to Mary Chapin Carpenters’s opus several decades later).

      4. Victor RamirezI can’t recall, though I was 14 throughout the year it ran (1970). The one I’m familiar with was shown on Miss Hilligoss ‘s public page, where she refrained from making any judgments on it save to note that the women’s movement (just then becoming a topic of national attention via news media) was outraged.

  9. Anywhere But HollywoodThe Criterion two-fer is indeed splendid. What the post (not yours, but the original post) might have mentioned is that, although costar Sidney Berger was quite as much an unknown as Miss Hilligoss, he would go on to chair the Department of Theatre in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Houston (comparable to a move John Astin had made at The Johns Hopkins University). Something I’ve also noticed over the decades is that in some respects the film resembles a narrative painting by Edvard Munch entitled The Dance of Life. Probably a coincidence, but a striking one nonetheless; if Herk Harvey had ever announced it had been a partial inspiration for his film I would not have been surprised.

  12. Brilliant film. The concept has been done often enough since that it no longer seems fresh but before this one it was pretty much only familiar through one episode of The Twilight Zone, “The Hitchiker” … which had previously been done as a radio play.

  16. I saw a VHS dub of a this movie where Harvey introduced it to a late night cable audience. He said the movie was a pure joy to make but he said no one wanted the picture for distribution and there really wasn’t any financial reward.

  42. Richard W. Haines We painted the caveman clubs on the roof. The day I interviewed there it was so incredibly hot – I vaguely remember a huge fan, open window, and of course no AC. I also remember driving in the back of a truck to some Hudson-side warehouse where the set was. I think I still have the script somewhere – and I think it was originally called “Split.” When they told me about the project they said they were going for a Mel Brooks-style comedy like History of the World. I never did see the movie until some time in the late 90s.

    I actually looked for the old office a few months ago, and if I got the location right it’s an Orange Theory now.

  46. I saw this film for the first time when I was about 12 years old on late night television, and many times since then. It holds up so well, and its cinematic and cultural influence cannot be overstated. A true masterpiece.

  47. Thanks for this backstory. There are a handful of low-budget horror films that have deeply affected me: Night of the Living Dead, Dementia 13, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. For consistent strangeness and mood, though, none can touch Carnival of Souls. I’m hesitant to call Eraserhead a horror film, but it’s certainly in the mix and Carnival’s influence is evident.

    How many other movies have had the same basic conceit as An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge? Jacob’s Ladder (1990) comes to mind.

    1. John Scott Do you have the interview or whatever where he said that? I thought he specifically said “Night of the Living Dead’s” undead look owed something to “Carnival of Souls.”

  53. The film, has a total life of its own. One of the top horror films of all time. The patina, and the cinematography, along with the creepy organ music, and the year it was made- 1962, all play into what is a masterclass of film making. Candace Hilligos is perfectly cast. Even the creepy neighbor, likely played by one of Herk’s friends, is pretty realistic. It’s on my list of favorites.

      1. Susan Rakauskas His uber slimy demeanor, and his advances to her, add to the discomfort she feels, and therefore- we feel, too. I think we all have known losers like him in our lives… and it makes us cringe a little at her predicament.

  54. Current film makers could learn a lot from Herk Harvey about how a really effective scary movie can be produced on a shoestring budget provided the film maker possesses a modicum of skill and imagination.

  77. Such an awesome movie! I think the director of the great “Honeymoon Killers” also made just one film. I had a very creepy experience – I was walking down Ninth Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenue, in NYC around 1975, and Candace Hillegoss walked right by me! It was like a surreal moment from the film. I was flabbergasted, as we used to say.

  86. It is indeed an amazing film. What’s that old saying? “If CARNIVAL OF SOULS had been made in Europe, it would be considered an art film today. If LES YEUX SANS VISAGE had been made in the USA, it would be considered drive-in grindhouse.”

  92. The pacing and mood made it dream like. Everything unfolds with an inevitability that couldn’t be avoided. The swirling music underscores the otherness of this altered state/environment.

  96. Terrified me so much when it randomly came on late night tv in Syracuse in 1966 that I insisted on sleeping on the floor of my sisters’ bedroom that night. And what European film directors influenced Mr. Harvey? Ingmar Bergman, Jean Cocteau, Michelangelo Antonioni…

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