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Product Description
Candice Hilligoss stars as a woman who survives a serious car accident and moves to Utah to become a church organist. She is pursued there by a strange phantom figure (Herk Harvey, who also directs and produces).
About the Director
Having survived a car accident that should have claimed her life, Mary begins a new job as a church organist. Plagued by evil visions of a ghoulish figure, she is drawn to an abandoned amusement park.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
By Shawyer
Format:DVD
I saw this years ago when BBC 2 ran a late night art house movie strand on Sundays and it has stayed with me ever since. The plot concerns a young woman who has survived a car accident taking up her new job in a small Midwestern town. It is genuinely chilling, creates an otherworldy, unsettling mood with the use of silence, the spiky organ score, a supporting cast of predatory grotesques and bleached black and white cinematography. It also bears comparison with Polanski's 'Repulsion' as a study in isolation and a vulnerable innocent's fast slipping grip on reality; or what she thinks is reality. The climax in the abandoned fairground is deeply spooky, sad and satisfying in equal measure. And on top of all this it has a classic 'jump out of your seat' shock as the heroine drives through a rainy night and looks twice at her reflection in the car's windscreen...
24 of 26 people found the following review helpful
By Mr S Jenkins
Format:DVD
This film was rediscovered in the 80's and featured on the BBC series "Videodrome". Without wanting to spoil the plot I'll just say that it's a genuinely creepy story that directly inspired George Romero's 1968 Night of the Living Dead. The plot focuses on Candace Hillgoss as a beautiful but cold church organist (Who is actually non-religious and just plays for money).In the opening scenes we see that she is the only girl to survive when a car filled with her and some friends careers off a bridge. She makes it to shore. From then on she is disturbed by stange nightmares and visions centering on a long abandoned funfair and it's pale inhabitants. That's all the plot I'm going to give away. If you love strange films then I cannot urge you enough to buy this one. As in the original Night of the Living Dead (and for that matter Psycho) the black and white photography only adds to the surrealism and detracts nothing from the plot or the genuine sense of unease that unfolds as the film plays.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
"Carnival of Souls," the only theatrical film every directed by Herk Harvey, is a cult classic with a most deserved reputation that puts it on a par with dead George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" in terms of shoestring productions. Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) accepts a car ride from a group of other young girls, only to end up in a drag race that sees the car go over a bridge with only Mary surviving. Having taken a job as a church organist in Salt Lake City, Mary heads for her new home, passing a deserted pavilion on the outskirts of town. Mary is drawn to the ruined bathing center/carnival, but has bigger problems since she keeps seeing a leering, corpse-like man (played by Harvey) watching her. Again and again Mary has the eerie of experience of suddenly finding herself in a silent world where no one seems to notice her. Eventually she returns to the pavilions to understand her final fate.
"Carnvial of Souls" came about because Herk Harvey drove by Saltair, the deserted 1940s tourist resort outside Salt Lake City, and decided it would make a powerful location for a horror film. Harvey recruited John Clifford to come up with a screenplay that would involve Harvey's image of dead bodies rising from the lake to pursue their victim. The finished product certainly evokes a nightmarish quality that makes you ignore the technical problems with overdubbing, campy performances by the supporting cast, and such. Hilligloss, trained in the Method by Strassberg but denied any hint of her character's motivation by the director, only made one other film, "Curse of the Living Corpse" (1964), but this film is enough to secure her reputation in the field. Sidney Berger (the all too friendly guy down the hall at her boarding house) does a cameo as a cop in the 1998 "Wes Craven Presents Carnival of Souls" debacle, which does not compare on any level to this evocative horror classic.
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4.3 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Dreadful tosh
How this movie ever achieved 'cult' status I'll never know. It's rubbish from start to finish. Like Ed Wood without the laughs.
Published 1 month ago by Simon Treves
5.0 out of 5 stars
i love carnival of souls
i love CARNIVAL OF SOULS its a classic b horror movie and theres not another movie to beat it. Thanks to HAROLD HERK HARVEY who created it and played the MAN the main ghost in... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Cj Flowerday
3.0 out of 5 stars
Arrived promptly & as described
The film was as described. I didnt like it as it scared me too much. This is no reflection on the quality of the film.
Published 3 months ago by Dot
1.0 out of 5 stars
Very poor sound quality
I could not watch this film as sound was extremely muffled. Pity because picture was good but was completely unwatchable.
Published 4 months ago by DS1
2.0 out of 5 stars
Haunting, eerie drive-in amateur art, released badly
The film itself is a haunting nightmareish world, which is like a faint marriage of Twilight Zone with an amateur performing troupe. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Zaroff
4.0 out of 5 stars
jeff in eastbourne
if you can get past the poor B production quality this movie is worth the watch. In some ways it is like a silent as all the plot moves in filmed sequence not talk... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Jeff Fleming
5.0 out of 5 stars
Carnival of Souls, a brillient science fiction filM
Carnival of Souls, is a brilliant science fiction film. Its director and the film stars in it are wondrful, and I recommend it to clients.
Published 11 months ago by Robert Green
5.0 out of 5 stars
A 5 star original but...
please note..the Black & white versions that Amazon sell are the standard 75 mjin versions-NOT the extended 90 mins as advertised! Read more
Published 13 months ago by KentishWench
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb scary b movie
Just love this movie - shot on a shoestring, but so full of energy and amazing shots and creepy effects....
Well worth adding to your DVD collection!
Well worth adding to your DVD collection!
Published 16 months ago by Jinjapewbs
3.0 out of 5 stars
Carnival of Souls
Although I would give this movie a 3 and half stars this is probably the worst DVD I have ever seen. Absolutely no restoration has been done. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Pravesh
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