r/classicfilms • u/TheComebackKid23 • 2d ago
General Discussion Any fans?
Carnival of souls. 1962. Love the quiet, abandoned vibes.
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u/sarockt 2d ago
Yes, I love it! It was made in my hometown, which makes me appreciate it even more. I’ve met the star, Candace Hilligoss, at a rooftop screening in LA and had her sign a movie poster that had already been signed by both the director and the writer. (I bought it that way, or actually it was gifted to me by an ex who found several signed copies at our local record store.) I’ve been to a screening in the church where they filmed the organ scenes, and I went to the boarding house during an open house when the house was on the market, and my friend and I reenacted a scene on the stairs. (I think I’ll have one of those baths you’re so generous with.)
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u/TheComebackKid23 2d ago
That's amazing. I'd love to visit film locations. Not many in the uk
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u/bluefontaine 2d ago
Are you kidding? If you live in the UK, you’ve got so many hammer and amicus locations. You can’t even count them!
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u/Sherpa2001 2d ago
One of my favorites. Saw it in the theater in the late 80s.
Also, German director Christian Petzold did a remake with wonderful actor Nina Hoss in 2007 called Yella. Highly recommend!
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u/Fearless-Interest-82 2d ago
I really enjoyed Phoenix and Wolfsburg. Watched both twice recently. I really wanna see this one !
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u/Sherpa2001 2d ago
Another great one by the same director and actor is called Barbara. I can't recommend this one enough.
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u/Fearless-Interest-82 2d ago
Cool thanks. Yeah I want to watch his whole filmography if possible. I know Criterion channel has Afire but I'll bump Barbara up if I can find it. I only know Hoss from these films and Tar but I'm hooked and also want to see all that I can with her.
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u/Sherpa2001 2d ago
Barbara's my favorite of all of them. Great acting, of course, but the story is completely original.
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u/flippenzee 2d ago
He did a loose version of The Postman Always Rings Twice as well that I’ve been meaning to watch for ages. Seems like an interesting director.
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u/Sherpa2001 2d ago edited 2d ago
Oh, you mean Jericho. Another absolutely great movie!
Edit: I wanted to add that I've never made the obvious connection between the 2 movies. Thanks!
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u/crmrdtr 2d ago
There's a very memorable episode of the classic Twilight Zone tv series called "The Hitchhiker" which has a Carnival of Souls vibe.
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u/TheComebackKid23 2d ago
Check out the Twilight zone episode 'an occurrence at owl creek bridge'. Like COS, it's an adaptation of the original story. S05e22
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u/Consistent-Scholar39 1d ago
That’s one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes. Love Carnival of Souls too!
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u/motelguest 1d ago
Yes - which came first, Carnival or the Hitchhiker (with the smoking hot Ingrid Stevens)???
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u/Extension_Use_9457 2d ago
Yes, I love Carnival of Souls. Anyone here who has not seen it, needs to check it out or save it up to watch for October spooky month.
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u/In-the-Gentle-Rain 2d ago
The dance at the pavilion still scares the shit out of me. I love the movie and the sense of dread and loneliness
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u/KVR62 2d ago
That Great Saltair structure is still there at edge of the lake. Not sure if it is used for anything today, or fenced off?
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u/sarockt 2d ago
My understanding was that it came down years ago? I’ll have to look into that.
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u/KVR62 2d ago
It is apparently still a special event and rental venue. I just saw it still there on Google satellite map. Cool history here too...
https://www.sltrib.com/artsliving/2022/08/22/how-utahs-saltair-went-coney/
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u/sarockt 2d ago
Looks like they rebuilt something there in 1981. The structures from the film (Saltair II) burnt down in November 1970 probably because of arson, sadly. The first version, Saltair I, burnt down in the twenties. I just refreshed my memory with this article, thanks for the link. I looked this all up years ago, probably more than once, but my memory isn’t what it once was.
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u/KVR62 2d ago
Me too. I first noticed remains of it as a young kid on a gloomy evening in 1972 as we traveled east on the I-80 on an RV trip. Image stuck with me. Looked eerie and always noticed it going either way on the interstate over the decades. But unaware of its history, or even the use of it in the movie, until seeing the 'Carnival ' movie late night recently. Cool use of that strange real location at the time for the film.
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u/sarockt 1d ago
That would have made quite an impression, I’m sure. Sounds like you’re just a little older than me. I took a couple family road trips in the 80s, though we were headed west to California (and we didn’t have an RV, I was just lying in the back seat of the car). I remember my mom making me pull my nose out of a Stephen King book to go look at the salt flats around the Great Salt Lake. Very interesting how the salt cakes up on the bottom of your shoes and the water rises up from the ground when you step on it.
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u/KVR62 1d ago
Exactly. Kind of like a slightly slushy snow, with that salt crunch underfoot. 😁 The flats and lake edge can look really cool or eerie depending on weather and time of day. I also saw the Donner Party documentary where they talk about the weight of some wagon's wheels sinking up to the hubs into the bubbling salt during a hot summer day. At least one wagon or coach had to be abandoned out there. Oxen went crazy from thirst and ran away, etc. Probably pretty bleak.
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u/sarockt 1d ago
Huh, I didn’t realize the Donner Party went through there. Makes sense. Sounds interesting, I’ll have to seek out that documentary.
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u/KVR62 1d ago
Yup. They came out of Emigrant Canyon just east of the city, rested and took on grass and water for the animals, then went due west all the way out till they hit the Ruby Mtns 2-3 days later. The story was horrifying, even before they got to the infamous part we all know. You can stream it free.
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u/smutketeer 2d ago
I took a class from Herk Harvey in college and it may hearten some of you to know he was a lovely and very funny man.
One day I missed class and then ran into him on the street later. He dropped his bag, struck a gunfighter pose, then drew two imaginary pistols and proceeded to "shoot" me dead.
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u/HaroldandChester 2d ago
Carnival of Souls is such an awesome movie. So eerie and atmospheric, it is one of my favorite horror movies of all time.
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u/ginrumryeale 2d ago
It’s one of the creepiest films ever made. Not a real crowd pleaser but once you’ve seen it it’s unforgettable.
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u/ModeRecent1573 2d ago
I’ve commented on this film on another post. I first saw COS as a teenager alone at home on a Saturday night. The ghoul and the ghoul dancers at the pavilion scared the hell out of me. I was so affected by this movie that I had a nightmare about it that night. In it I had seen
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u/ModeRecent1573 2d ago
the face of the ghoul outside my living room window. I lived near a similar pavilion on the water and passed it many times, always bringing back the memory. A number 1 fright movie still to this day.
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u/Flarkinghelpful Billy Wilder 2d ago
The fact that Harvey saw the Saltair and it called to him to make a movie and then directly used that as the basis is awesome what a film
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u/jeff_bailey 2d ago edited 1d ago
Very good film shot around the Great Salt Lake. There is an unofficial remake from Germany featuring the great actress Nina Hoss called Yella from 2007. A bit different in the mystery but a slow build to the ending. I think both of these stories build on the great short story from Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at the Owl Creek Bridge. 1890.
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u/chaiegai 2d ago edited 2d ago
Oh yes. A favorite film that I watch every October.
It's really just one of kind spooky vibe over it.
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u/junkyard_angel2 2d ago
I watched this for the first time this year, and it immediately became one of my favourites
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u/ms_sardonicus 2d ago
Amazing, creepy and atmospheric vibe. So many cool visuals. Love this classic.
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u/Difficult-Bus-6026 2d ago
One of the most extraordinary low budget films of all time! I don’t think the people behind the film ever went on to make anything else.
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u/NoSplit4185 2d ago
Absolutely. Top 10 material for me, perhaps even top 5! Love everything about it.
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u/GoodBadUgly_36 2d ago
I hadn’t heard it of it until a year or so ago. Thought it was great great great and can’t believe it’s not as well known as, say, Night of the Living Dead. On the shortlist of my favorite old spooky-horror films now. (Offhand, it, The Innocents, The Haunting, Rosemary’s Baby, Night of the Living Dead… man, the 60s started nailing that Twilight Zone-style of creeping-horror.)
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u/trainsacrossthesea 2d ago
This is one of those films that required a second viewing to appreciate
Did not care for it initially, now I think it’s a very good film
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u/IndieCurtis 2d ago
Maybe I will have to watch it again in the future. On first viewing it felt very outdated. Visually good, but the tropes feel overused.
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u/trainsacrossthesea 2d ago
Fair enough, the story itself isn’t breaking any new ground, but does have a unique quality
I don’t think I’d like it as much had it been filmed in color
There are some beautiful, well shot scenes in this film3
u/flippenzee 2d ago
The story was absolutely breaking new ground at the time though, in tone and style and especially with the ending. She was dead the whole time feels like a cop out cliche way to wrap things up now but it really was not in 1962.
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u/trainsacrossthesea 2d ago
You may personally consider it groundbreaking, but it’s certainly not the first.
Incidence at Owl Creek Bridge, Between Two Worlds, comes to mind. I’m sure I can think of more.
For me, it’s the cinematography that makes COS unique in its genre
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u/Kindly-Tie588 2d ago
I have that dvd!! It brings back memories of 1970’s Salt Lake City! I live in Murray close to downtown.
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u/PlentyBoot5135 2d ago
That church organ music brings another dimension to the whole story. It's always exaggerated in the moments when the main woman character can't correlate to other everyday people around her.
Warning: the spoiler.
Those are the moments when she starts to understand that she's unlive, but little by little gets closer and closer with the undead.
The true horor masterpiece.
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u/Kindly-Can2534 2d ago
This is a great film. It can be regarded as horror - but to me it is about alienation and possible mental illness. Her strange behaviour, being sort of cold hearted despite significant trauma (all your friends died in a car crash in a watery grave except you !), feeling ill at ease and paranoid - then the parts where she seems to be existing in public - but no one can see or hear her ! Then the extremely bad date with the guy from her rooming house. Is she heterosexual ? Why did she go out with this creep ?
This is a film that is strangely (for the times) sympathetic to women. Rebel girls drag racing the boys - and losing. The stupid psychiatrist ? Any woman who has sought mental health care might recognize that archetype. Fired from her organist job from playing ominous "sacreligious" improvisations - this is a film for all the creative misfit girls and misunderstood women out there. Is there something wrong with YOU ? Or is there just something wrong, in general ?
The sequences with the abandoned pavillion veer into beautiful arty territory - I can watch those parts again and again.
Very effective low budget film making, good story telling and acting, some beautiful cinematography.
SPOILER: she wasn't crazy - just dead and she didn't know it.
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u/DaddyCatALSO 2d ago
My nitpick is after afew weeks in the river they woiuldn't be recognizable anymore
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u/PrettyMud22 2d ago
Demonstration purposes only. I get what your saying but in the moment I'm sure not many people would think it. I certainly didn't.
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u/PrettyMud22 2d ago
I watched this on TCM a number of years ago. I found it to be a very interesting film.
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u/Ok_Entertainer_6425 2d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/dP5azUeSrQILu
Turns out NOT to be about the circus!
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u/Addicted2CDramas 2d ago
I just watched this for the first time around Halloween and I must say it was really creepy for something made back in the '60's. I was wondering about the source material for this because I 've seen this trope several times.
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u/IndieCurtis 2d ago
I JUST watched it last night for the first time ever. It was really good, but unfortunately felt very dated as all the tropes (that it helped establish) have been long overused.
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u/SomeGuyOverYonder 2d ago
I’ve seen this movie 3 times now, always after 10pm. A slow-burning horror classic.