Carnival of Souls (1962) - Video On Demand

Carnival of Souls - Movie Review

She escaped death. Now it wants her back! Carnival of Souls is a cult horror film released in 1962. Produced and directed by Herk Harvey for an estimated $33,000, the movie never gained widespread public attention when it was originally released (It was part of a double-feature drive-in special with "The Devil's Mistress"), but has become a well know cult film.

A drag race turns to tragedy when one car, with three young women inside, topples over a bridge and into the muddy river below. The authorities drag the river, but the search is fruitless and the girls are presumed dead until a single survivor stumbles out of the water with no recollection of how she escaped. Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) who decides to forget her strange experience and carry on with her plan to move to Utah to accept a job as a church organist. She begins to have weird visions of a ghoulish man who stares at her and she experiences eerie spells in which she becomes invisible to people on the street. Eventually Mary realizes that the deserted carnival just outside town holds the secret to her destiny.

Herk Harvey was a Lawrence, Kansas-based director and producer of industrial and educational films for the Centron Corporation, a company responsible for creating propaganda-type informative specials, such as Read 'Em or Weep or Touch a Child. While vacationing in Salt Lake City, he developed the idea for the movie after driving past the abandoned Saltair Pavilion. Hiring an unknown actress, Lee Strasberg-trained Candace Hilligoss, and otherwise employing mostly local talent, he shot Carnival of Souls in three weeks, on location in Lawrence and Salt Lake City.

Set to an organ score by Gene Moore, Carnival of Souls relies more on atmosphere than on special effects to create its mood of horror.

Carnival of Souls - Cast & Crew

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