Your May Halloween movie: CARNIVAL OF SOULS
Posted: Wed May 09, 2007 5:36 am
I was there in May, 1989 when they brought this one back to the big screen for a very limited release...one of the highlights of my movie watching career
You can't even imagine how strange, eerie, and unsettling this thing looks. Lady survives a car crash but is there after hunted by a ghoul WHAT DOES HE WANT?
Well, if you've seen THE TWILIGHT ZONE you can guesss the rest..but it's the WAY it's done that works here...they use an organ score that is totally freaky..Candice Hilligross wanders through the town in a chilled detached air...when she is alone and practising on the organ..you get the feeling that some else is behind the wheel...so well done...
BUY ONLY THE 81 MIN. version...Sinister Cinema was there first for years with the longest print..and I like the fact that the restored footage in theirs has a faded look..you are reminded this is a movie that had to be saved..and as a movie, it was made by an industrial film company for something like 17 thousand dollars. The guys who made it never made a dime from it. Once a year, a film school would rent it, and the rental fee would just about cover the postage.
But it is SUCH a masterpiece of intelligent horror.
An absolute must see. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD learned a LOT from this one...There is NO way ANYONE in 1962 could have been ready for the dance sequence that climaxes the film...or Mary...crawling out of that river at the start, framed against the sun...standing in shock and whimpering a bit as they come and put a blanket on her...or the first time she sees the ghoul...and the LOOK in his eye that removes all doubt about what he wants...
You can't even imagine how strange, eerie, and unsettling this thing looks. Lady survives a car crash but is there after hunted by a ghoul WHAT DOES HE WANT?
Well, if you've seen THE TWILIGHT ZONE you can guesss the rest..but it's the WAY it's done that works here...they use an organ score that is totally freaky..Candice Hilligross wanders through the town in a chilled detached air...when she is alone and practising on the organ..you get the feeling that some else is behind the wheel...so well done...
BUY ONLY THE 81 MIN. version...Sinister Cinema was there first for years with the longest print..and I like the fact that the restored footage in theirs has a faded look..you are reminded this is a movie that had to be saved..and as a movie, it was made by an industrial film company for something like 17 thousand dollars. The guys who made it never made a dime from it. Once a year, a film school would rent it, and the rental fee would just about cover the postage.
But it is SUCH a masterpiece of intelligent horror.
An absolute must see. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD learned a LOT from this one...There is NO way ANYONE in 1962 could have been ready for the dance sequence that climaxes the film...or Mary...crawling out of that river at the start, framed against the sun...standing in shock and whimpering a bit as they come and put a blanket on her...or the first time she sees the ghoul...and the LOOK in his eye that removes all doubt about what he wants...