I bought this 50
pack of classic horror movies a few years ago because I love Halloween, but I
hate slasher films. I prefer creepy over gory. In the interest of getting
through most of this set, I’m going to try watching one film a day. I don’t
know if I’ll make it because life and all that, but I’m going to try. First up:
Title: Carnival of Souls
Starring: Candace Hilligoss, Frances
Feist, Sydney Berger
Year: 1962
Summary: A young woman apparently
survives a drag race accident that had the car she was in toppling off a bridge
and into the river below. Unfazed by this experience, the woman heads off
across country to her new job as a church organist. Experiencing strange things
along her trip and also when she arrives at her new home, the woman begins to
suspect that her survival of the accident was not as it appears.
The first thing I
noticed is that the audio quality is not great. It starts out with two groups
of people in two cars, and the dialogue is barely audible over the engines. The
insert says this was made in 1962, but I find that hard to believe unless it
just wasn’t well preserved. (Looking at the reviews on Amazon, I see that the
quality of all the films in this set is hit-or-miss.)
However, despite some
of my difficulty in hearing some of the dialogue (there’s no closed captioning
available), the strength of this movie is its settings. Apparently, it was shot
on a fairly small budget of $30,000, all raised by local businesses in
Lawrence, Kansas. All the staples are there--a church, a carnival, a department
store—and they’re all appropriately creepy. The main character is an organist,
and we all know organ music is perfect for horror movies. Or maybe I’ve just
watched Phantom of the Opera too many
times.
The scariest
element of this movie is the guy who peeps on the main character while she’s
changing and then continues to ask her out and bother her even though she’s not
interested. He even asks her if she’s “afraid of men” and tells her that she’s “cold.”
Ugh. Seems things haven’t changed in 50 years.
All in all,
Carnival of Souls is mildly creepy and has a great title, but I don’t think I’d
watch it again.
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