Carnival of Souls

"She Escaped Death. Now It Wants Her Back!"

1962 1h 18m EN

👍

6.9

SOLID

🍅

87%

FRESH

⭐

IMDB

★6.9TMDB · 556🍅87%Rotten Tomatoes★7IMDB · 29,622

HorrorMysteryFantasy

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Mary Henry ends up the sole survivor of a fatal car accident through mysterious circumstances. Trying to put the incident behind her, she moves to Utah and takes a job as a church organist. But her fresh start is interrupted by visions of a fiendish man. As the visions begin to occur more frequently, Mary finds herself drawn to the deserted carnival on the outskirts of town. The strangely alluring carnival may hold the secret to her tragic past.

“She Escaped Death. Now It Wants Her Back!”

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Cast

Candace Hilligoss
Mary Henry
Herk Harvey
The Man
Sidney Berger
John Linden
Frances Feist
Mrs. Thomas
Art Ellison
Minister
Stan Levitt
Dr. Samuels
Tom McGinnis
Organ Factory Boss
Forbes Caldwell
Organ Factory Worker

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Herk Harvey
Writers: Herk Harvey, John Clifford
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

RUNTIME

Did you know

Tight 78-minute runtime — shorter than most television pilots.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $0.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

64 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Herk Harvey, shot by Maurice Prather. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Gene Moore. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Herbert L. Strock shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Candace Hilligoss and Herk Harvey and Sidney Berger carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "She Escaped Death. Now It Wants Her Back!".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Herk Harvey directs. Maurice Prather behind the camera. Gene Moore scores. Herbert L. Strock cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Tight 78-minute runtime — shorter than most television pilots.
2Shot for just $0.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
364 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
4Directed by Herk Harvey, shot by Maurice Prather. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Gene Moore. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Herbert L. Strock shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Candace Hilligoss and Herk Harvey and Sidney Berger carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "She Escaped Death. Now It Wants Her Back!".
9IMDB entry: tt0055830 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 9 themes, including "organ", "car crash", "b movie", "female protagonist".

The technical file

Cinematography: Maurice Prather
Original score: Gene Moore
Editing: Herbert L. Strock
Makeup / hair: George Corn
Runtime: 78 min · 1h 18m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $30,000
Original language: EN
Certification (US): NR
IMDB: Carnival of Souls (1962)
Rotten Tomatoes: 87% 🍅 Fresh
IMDB rating: 7/10 · 29,622 votes
MPAA: PG

Also by

Herk Harvey

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Community reviews

What people are saying

John Chard2014-03-29
★ 8/10
We open with a car crash... Mary and her two friends leave the road and fly off a bridge during a friendly dragster race. She is the only survivor and after her recovery she takes up a job as the church organist in a new town, but she is constantly blighted by a ghostly like visitor and periods of time when nobody seems to know she exists. A hinted spoiler follows. Carnival Of Souls has thankfully found a whole new audience in the new millennium, the advent of cheap triple pack DVDs and a lush Criterion release have brought it firmly to the attention of Horror/Ghost fans who were not aware that the film even existed. That said, there is no doubting that many big name directors were fully aware of it, tho, for Carnival Of Souls has influenced such luminary genre masters from Romero to Carpenter, and from Hooper to Shyamalan, be it the low budget DIY ethic, or its now genre staple twist ending, it's a film (along with it's director Herk Harvey) that is referenced as much as it is copied. The tag often used for the film is that it's an elongated Twilight Zone episode, and sure enough I think that is a perfect fit. Its whole structure feels like a part of that wonderful and amazing Rod Serling show, and for sure this story owes a doff of the cap to An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge (an Ambrose Bierce short that was reworked and used on Serling's show), but to merely suggest a retread of a previously used idea would be very unfair. Carnival Of Souls is full of eerie sequences that are dream like in quality yet goose pimply in effect. Scored at frequent intervals by a jangling organ shrill, the ghostly phantoms that plague poor Mary actually bring a shiver to the spine; while a surrealistic dance of the carnival is a stunning eerie highlight. It's a wonderfully brought together story that has one pondering uneasily from the get go, managing to jolt your senses adroitly with a very special ending. With a small budget of only $30,000 and a cast of friends, Herk Harvey crafted one of the best independent horror sub-genre films ever made. Don't believe me? Then go ask Romero, Raimi or Hooper. 8/10
Wuchak2022-02-15
★ 7/10
Haunting early 60's movie, like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone A young woman (Candace Hilligoss) survives a vehicle accident in Lawrence, Kansas, and then is troubled by a specter (director Herk Harvey) and other strange occurrences as she moves to the Great Salt Lake region for a gig as a church organist. "Carnival of Souls" (1962) is an eerie, moody cult flick shot in B&W, but not scary at all. It's similar in vibe to "Night Tide" (1961) with Dennis Hopper. The creepiest part is the girl's lecherous neighbor in Utah (Sidney Berger). Besides the haunting ambiance, what I like best about it is the portrayal of two intersecting dimensions: Someone in the spiritual dimension can't be seen or (for the most part) heard in the physical realm. While it's overrated and predictable, it's still an interesting ghostly period piece. The movie runs 1 hour, 24 minutes, and was shot in Lawrence, Kansas, and Magna, Great Salt Lake & Salt Lake City, Utah. GRADE: B-/B
CinemaSerf2023-05-06
★ 7/10
When two groups of teenagers are racing their cars over a narrow bridge, an accident occurs and the car carrying the girls goes a-tumbling into the deep and muddy river below. It's during the extensive search process (a man with a bit of string with a weight tied to it) that "Mary" (Candice Hilligoss) emerges from the river, the sole survivor. Gradually, though, things start to become ambiguous - she is obsessed with a run down carnival nearby, is soon seeing apparitions and after a short while we all start to wonder if she is actually real or not! The acting from Hilligoss and from Art Ellison as the savvy preacher is quite compelling to watch (the dialogue much less so) and as the plot thickens, the drama builds nicely into quite a tense little horror story with an effective organ-based score to help raise the tension too. Watch it on a dark, wintery, night and it is a remarkably effective B-feature.