A Spectre is Haunting Utah

This week, ghouls, guns, and Galas. Spoilers below for Carnival of Souls.

From the Grave.

Three ideas from horror cinema's past.

◆ Carnival of Souls, dir. Herk Harvey, 1962.

Excellent choice. Carnival of Souls is one of the least rough-around-the-edges movies ever made on a tiny budget. Shoestring budgets require speed and compromise, but nothing of the sort is perceptible here. Herk Harvey just did everything right. Candace Hilligoss is captivating and ethereal. The organ score strikes the right dark tone. The location shooting, especially at the Saltair Pavilion, is gorgeous and eerie. And Harvey himself as the main ghoul stalking Hilligoss’s Mary is terrifying—his hair, makeup, and wardrobe a feat of no-budget creature design. So much of filmmaking is about selection, about making choices, and Carnival of Souls is a testament to the power of making the right ones.

Haunted just because. Haunted places tend to have stories behind them, tend to connect historically to the living world. A haunted house is usually a place where someone died, maybe also a place where a spirit has unfinished business. The central haunted location in Carnival of Souls, though, contains no story linking its ghosts to the living world except perhaps that it’s been entirely abandoned. Mary herself has no connection to the Saltair pavilion. She simply passes it on the road and feels its pull. Harvey (and writer John Clifford) place a supernatural site in the world of the living without explanation—its otherworldly power deriving from the pavilion’s look and feel, not from its history.