In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based on where my interests lead me and what’s available from the public library.
Herk Havey has one thing in common with Robert Altman: they both directed industrial films before taking the plunge into commercial features. Then their stories diverge, however: while Altman developed a unique style and became one of the most celebrated directors of the second half of the 20th century, Harvey made one feature which flopped and promptly went back to making industrials for the Centron Corporation. That one feature, however, is so weird and strange and influential that it’s well worth seeing, and we can only wonder what might have been if it had enjoyed greater commercial success.
Harvey’s background is clear from the start: Carnival of Souls begins with a teenage drag race that could easily have been part of a driver’s ed cautionary tale along the lines of The Last Date or Appointment with Disaster. In this case, a car full of men challenges a car full of women, then forces them off a bridge and into the river, apparently killing everyone inside. Then, like a selkie from the sea, one of the women arises from the water and walks across a sandbar to safety.
That would be the beautiful yet oddly disaffected Mary (Candace Hilligoss), who shows little emotion regarding her near-death experience and displays a similar attitude toward the life she resumes as a church organist. She drives from Kansas to Utah to take a new job, but seems unwilling to observe any of the social conventions, like meeting the members of the congregation or even expressing enthusiasm about the job to her boss, which others find offputting.
Mary’s also having a disturbing series of experiences: a man of frightening appearance (Herk Harvey, listed in the credits as “The Man”) keeps turning up, wherever she is, and since no one else sees him, she feels like she’s being gaslit. She’s also strangely drawn to the Saltair, an abandoned resort and amusement park near the shores of Great Salt Lake.
Harvey was inspired to make this film after seeing the ruins of the Saltair, and this movie is a fine example of capitalizing on the qualities of a found location. Another example is Harvey exploiting his access to the Reuter Organ Factory (an early scene is shot inside it), which explains why he made Mary’s character an organist. That decision that also fits nicely with the organ-only soundtrack (by Gene Moore), which recalls the days of silent movies and probably saved some money as well.
The strength of Carnival of Souls lies not in the big reveal, which is obvious almost from the beginning, but in the unsettling mood it creates and the striking images Harvey puts on the screen. Don’t come to this film looking for plausibility: it’s more of a black and white giallo where the point is to move the viewer, not to make conventional sense. Don’t expect much in the way of acting either: most of the characters are played by non-professionals whose abilities range from pretty good to laughably bad, but their lack of skill becomes part of the film’s strangeness that is its greatest strength.
Carnival of Souls is also a study in misogyny, in which Mary is the focus of some rather creepy male attention which no one else seems to notice. Harvey’s character is a stalker who would be frightening even if he wasn’t made up to look like a walking corpse, several men of the cloth and one man of science are overly familiar and handsy and give her advice that comes pretty close to “you should smile more” while her fellow boarder in Utah (Sidney Berger) checks all the boxes for a man with only one thing on his mind and who won’t take no for an answer. | Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 63
Technical details: 8 min; B &W; screen ratio 1.37:1; English.
Edition reviewed: Blu-ray
Extras: audio commentary by Herk Harvey and John Clifford; interview with Dana Gould; video essay by David Cairns; featurette on a 1989 reunion of the film’s cast and crew; 1989 television documentary on the film made for its theatrical re-release, including a tour of some of the locations; essay on the history of the Centron Corporation; deleted scenes; outtakes; television documentary about the Saltair Resort; booklet with essay by Kier-La Janisse; trailer.
Fun Fact: Harvey was a professor of theatre at the University of Kansas when he started working in movies for the Centron Corporation, also located in Lawrence.
Parting Thought: Is the oppressive misogyny in Carnival of Souls self-aware and critical or is it just a representation what was considered normal behavior in 1962?
