MOTM November '10: Carnival of Souls (1962)

[Jen]

After a traumatic car accident, a young woman is haunted by ghostly images.

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Rate this film on a scale of 0-5 Stars, 5 being the best.

[CT]

Nice, one I haven't seen yet, but already own. My wallet thanks you lol. Looking forward to watching it soon.

[GL]

Same here, taped it off TV but haven't seen it at all, I'll get to it soon.

[The Walking Dude]

A deadset classic.The atmosphere is so thick you can cut it with a knife.The man(actually director Herk Hervey) is so damn creepy and i think I may run out of superlatives to describe it.A high 4 from me.

Even to this day it's influence is felt,and I know for a fact a certain George A. Romero is a serious fan of this film.He counts this and Richard Matheson's I am Legend as the major influences on a little film he made in Pittsburgh in the late 60's.Maybe you've heard of it.

And I discovered recently that an early Alice Cooper song I'm fond of Levity Ball was actually inspired by a scene in this.

[CT]

I'm going to try to watch it this weekend.

[abraxas]

Very thick indeed. its almost hypnotic, definitely a milestone in the kind of films that are seen recently, one of the earliest twist movies.

[Jen]

I've seen this before, but it's been awhile. We will probably watch it over the weekend, I will rate it then.

[Jen]

I give it a 4 as well. I do agree it's influence is still felt, and it is creepy as hell. But it has its problems. The low budget is obvious and works in it's favor in a lot of ways, but I do think a lot of the acting and dialogue is mediocre at best. However, this is a film that works very well because of the atmosphere, which has been mentioned, and a very intriguing, detached lead character.

[GL]

Caught up with this one, I'd say it's a 3.

The atmosphere here is pretty evocative and haunting, making for some pretty innovative images here and there that really do get a touch creepier than what would be expected in such a film, and it's definitely creepy enough that the scenes of utter weirdness and just plain out-there ideas work for the most part, especially in the last part where there's a lot of chasing going on. The main thing that held this one down, beyond the fact that the low-budget does show through incredibly easily, was the fact that there's just not a whole lot of anything interesting going on while she's not being tormented by the ghostly visions. There's no mystery being investigated, there's not a spark to find out what's going on, and instead it just contends to have her moan and complain about it without doing much about it. That really makes it drag on in the middle parts, even more so due to the fact that it spends a lot of time with her in church just wasting time with her playing and not doing anything. Still, it's not too bad if just somewhat flawed.