While Herk Harvey’s creepy, low-budget psychological horror thrillerCarnival of Souls has little in common with Capra’s perennial classic, it is notable in that it, too, was “saved” by television. Made in 1961 for $30,000 by a group of filmmakers from the Centron Corporation, an industrial and educational film company based in Lawrence, Kansas, it did little business theatrically when it was released in the fall of 1962 (it was cut by five minutes so it could be shown on a double bill with the Lon Chaney Jr. horror anthology The Devil’s Messenger at drive-ins). The film likely would have fallen into complete obscurity and disappeared forever had it not gained a cult following after it become a staple of late night television programming. Many of those who saw Carnival of Souls on late-night TV recognized that it was not a disposable piece of schlock; the talent and visual ingenuity of director Herk Harvey is apparent in every frame, and there is little surprise that the film is often compared to another low-budget black-and-white horror masterpiece, George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968).

The film’s main character is a young woman named Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) who, in the opening sequence, is the only person to survive a terrible accident when a car in which she and two girlfriends are riding plunges off a bridge and into a river. When Mary emerges from the cold, muddy waters, she is dazed and shocked, looking not unlike one of Romero’s living dead. Days later, she finds that she has become emotionally removed from the rest of the world. But, more than that, Mary is haunted by a ghostly apparition that appears before her at random moments and without warning. A doctor suggests that maybe this apparition (who is played by the director) is a projection of the guilt she feels about being the lone survivor of the accident. But, this labored Freudian interpretation does nothing to put her tortured mind to rest.

Mary moves to Salt Lake City, Utah, to take a job as an organist in a church, but she has no religious convictions, which further isolates her from those around her. She endures the constant come-ons from John Linden (Sidney Berger), a slimy neighbor in the boarding house at which she stays, but she has no romantic interest. At two points in the film, her removal from the social world becomes literal to the point that she wanders the streets trying to talk to people, none of whom can apparently hear or see her. While driving into the city, she spots a strange, ruinous building on the edge of the Great Salt Lake outside of town—a crumbling pavilion that was once a great dance hall. No one else seems much interested in it, but she finds herself continually drawn to it and the ghostly spirits that haunt its dance floor. It is only when she finally enters the pavilion that she learns the truth about herself and why she is haunted.

That pavilion is central not just to the story in the film, but to the story of how the film came to be made. It all started when Herk Harvey saw the deserted Saltair Resort, which had first been constructed in the 1890s as Utah’s answer to Convey Island, while on a trip. He was so taken by its strange Moorish architecture and its remote location in the salt flats outside of Salt Lake City, that he was inspired to make a film using it as a central location. He asked John Clifford, with whom he worked at Centron, to write a script, and Clifford produced the screenplay for Carnival of Souls in a couple of weeks. Harvey and Clifford raised the money themselves from local investors, and the rest is B-movie history.

Although it didn’t make much of a splash in 1962, after years of late-night TV airings and a theatrical revival in 1989, Carnival of Souls finally received the recognition it deserved upon initial release. Perhaps it is only in retrospect, with so many half-hearted horror movies and increasingly bland slasher pics in mind, that the ingenuity, creativity, and sheer inspiration that went into Carnival of Souls could become fully clear. Granted, the film has its weaknesses—the acting is uneven and there are a few points in the narrative that tend to drag—but, overall, it is inspired filmmaking. Harvey’s direction is tight and creative. He and cinematographer Maurice Prather make great use of stark black-and-white photography and odd camera angles that make even ordinary locations seem vaguely sinister or strangely ethereal (this is especially true of both an early scene in which Mary is in an organ factory and just about every scene that takes place in the church in which she works). The film is punctuated musically by an eerie organ score by Gene Moore, and there are times when it is impossible to tell whether the music is external to the narrative or whether it is the music Mary is playing herself, which reflects how reality and the supernatural are constantly folding in on themselves throughout the film.

But, more than anything else, Carnival of Souls demonstrates that the quality of a horror film is not directly proportional to the size of the budget. One does not need millions of dollars in special effects and prosthetic ghoul costumes to send a shiver down the spectator’s spine. While too many big-budget Hollywood blockbusters demonstrate that all the money in the world can’t compensate for a lack of originality and imagination, Harvey’s Midwestern B-movie gem shows just the opposite. An effective work of art requires creativity and determination, both of which Harvey had in abundance.

Copyright ©2016 James Kendrick

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