One day, enjoying a ride with two friends, Mary Henry recklessly agrees to take part in a race. After a car accident and falling from bridge into the river, all the girls seem to have drowned, but not long after, Mary pulls herself out of the river covered in mud with no recollection of previous events. A week later, she decides to leave the city where she lives, move to a small town in the state of Utah, and accept a new job as an organist at a church there, to the satisfaction of a local priest. Shortly after settling into a local boarding house run by Mrs. Thomas, Mary will discover that she is being haunted by a mysterious man who looks like a ghost. To make matters worse, she soon begins to realize that the people she addresses don’t hear her and that no one can see her. At the same time, she is increasingly drawn in an inexplicable way to an seemingly abandoned pavilion on the edge of town.
Carnival of Souls is remembered as one of the most important films for the horror industry. Carnival of Souls is a film with a hard-to-describe theme, which can best be identified with some ghost films and the earliest episodes of the Twilight Zone series, but in essence, this film is uncharacterized and should not fall into any particular pattern. Even the poster says an interesting tagline: A story so unusual – it will burn itself into your mind! Despite the fact that the film is black and white, all this lack of colors, accumulation of insane sounds and quality statics scenario and dynamics produce tension that takes place throughout almost the entire film.
During the film, we can hardly understand what is going on. The protagonist revolves all the time in the dimensions of hallucinations and seemingly unreal life with some new neighbors, and the figure that appears every 10 minutes is certainly one of the most memorable phenomena in the world of horror movies, and you can find it in the National Geographic documentary ‘Are they real? Ghosts’. There are more spooky depictions in the plot, especially towards the end of the film when it actually sheds light on what during the film can be assumed to be the essence of the whole plot and plot.
In short, Carnival of Souls is a very good horror that could have been great if some scenes were better realized or a little more work was done on the course of the action, but globally, every horror fan should dedicate themselves to this disturbing classic. Remember, it’s not just scary scenes that are the essence of some horror, because if a film manages to reach a level that is uncomfortable through some constant, it can only be an even bigger plus and reward for the audience.
The famous David Lynch included Carnival of Souls among his favorite films, and George A. Romer liked the film so much that shaped zombies from the anthological Night of the Living Dead according to characters in this film.
