Carnival of Souls

 A young woman, in a car with girlfriends that accidentally drives off a bridge when they're racing some cocky guys, walks from the lake in one piece, in a daze and off kilter. As she attempts to get back to life, something seems to be missing, a personality and a desire to rejoin the human race. When she starts to see the creepy figure of a white-faced ghoul, this woman might have to examine his purpose for constantly appearing to her...could it have something to do with that crash?
*****

There was a point in the Carnival of Souls where a church’s pastor is talking the new organist job at a Utah church with the film’s protagonist, with her reacting coldly to his implication that going into the position as “just a job” isn’t the way to go “into church work”. Of course, she says she isn’t taking the vows and seems disinterested in anything he has to say. When he tells her to put her soul into it, I said to myself, “What soul?” When that preacher talks Candace Hilligoss’ “strange behavior” with a carpenter nearby, “if she’s got a problem, it’ll go right along with her” ends the conversation. It leads to the next scene where she drives by the location on the bridge where the car carrying her and the friends that perished in the car crash/drowning accident…not long before this she was walking up to it. She’s compelled, it seems, towards this pivotal moment of her life. It was as if she belongs there.

I am a horror fan because I’m particularly interested in fate and how creatively and imaginatively it can be storytold to us in image, cinematically, thematically, and aesthetically. I think most of us fear death but while I realize many of those that love the genre do not believe in a human soul, perhaps more adept to believing in a consciousness instead, I do. I love Carnival of Souls for a multitude of reasons. I don’t write about the films I’m passionate about enough, which is kind of sad to me, but the joy I had back last October writing about Psycho and Dracula returns when a Carnival of Souls is on the screen. Its low budget used to optimum effect. A simple organ drone can do the trick if applied to “spooky stuff”. The lead seemingly lost among the life going on around her, as if an intruder who doesn’t belong, drawn to the carnival off in the distance, abandoned and forgotten. 

When I watch Carnival of Souls, I can’t help but think about the Twilight Zone episode of The Hitch-Hiker with Inger Stevens trying her damnedest to avoid death pursuing her while on the road in the eerie guise of a hitchhiker, this nondescript figure of a vagabond in a black hat and plain clothes who pops up continuously despite all her attempts to escape him. Ultimately, Carnival of Souls is no different. Hilligoss is basically doing the same thing. She tries to avoid the inevitable, but Death is never too far away and likes to pop up on occasion to remind her he’s right there waiting for her.

Her ability to play the church organ does allow Herk Harvey to utilize it as an underlying symphony of unease that overlays the abandoned carnival that calls out to Hilligoss. When she performs on either the organ  back home or in Utah, there’s no passion or beauty that exhausts from their pipes; instead, the sound is almost from beyond the grave, a distillation of this cold unfeeling that comes from existing in limbo absent that humanity seized by death after the crash and the calamity arising from cheating death temporarily while in constant duress due to his “hanging around” and revealing himself quite often as a reminder. Hilligoss has these eyes and fixed expression of fear that I find fitting for when Harvey’s ghoul appears/reappears, never quite allowing her to comfortably ease back into life or become assuaged from his presence. Death looms and escape seems momentary. Does she continue to flee and try to remain free from his grasp?

It's hard not to think of The Hitch-Hiker Twilight Zone episode specifically when she's in the car and the ghoul shows up. Those night scenes, especially when looking out at the Carnival while in passing, give me goosebumps. I like the feeling of goosebumps and dread. I think this signals the buried fear of death that could be on the horizon for us all. I think that is why horror is such a vital part of my love for film; it reminds us of how vulnerable, fragile, and unpredictable life is. There are extremes to this; Carnival of Souls takes the spookshow route, its purpose to rattle our cages and give us that sense that something is just not right.

 I like how he's everywhere she goes. On the road, in the apartment complex she lives, in the shrink's chair eventually. But most importantly, he's at the carnival.

A fleeting potential relationship with a character that even makes my skin crawl.

Something's amiss.

Maybe it was nothing.

I remember watching Carnival of Souls the very first time when Hilligoss goes through her first experience where it seems she’s no longer among the living. I found the score and the situation suitably eerie. It is such a standout, much like the later "ghoul dance" at the carnival, because it seems to symbolize the first real moment that she may not belong in her current realm. She tries to get the attention of those in the clothing store but none of them see or hear her. Sounds have left her; the jackhammering outside the store with the city workers and broken-up sidewalk, the busy streets and cars driving past, all is deafened from her. I liken her to a ghost that hasn’t passed on and wishes to exist where she once was an active member. Except in this case, she still has one leg in the living and another hovering (or maybe, dipping her toes is more apt) in the hereafter. I like how Death is methodical, not choosing to come at her in one fail swoop but all of this film functions in steps. She sees Death periodically. Just seconds. Then life itself begins to slip away. She remains drawn to the carnival…it represents a place she belongs, much like the water under the bridge. She doesn’t belong anymore among the active living. There’s a dance she will engage. The very end shows us this. A dance she can no longer avoid. A dance with Death. But, for this time, the birds return to chirping and the wind sends of its welcome to her, their sounds a pleasant return from the cold deafness and life's ignoring her completely.

One of my favorite scenes has Hilligoss visiting the “pavilion”, walking about its environs, seemingly admiring and enjoying the place. It is as if she belongs there. She is stopped by a man who seems to fancy himself someone with insight and knowledge that could benefit and assist her in the possible illusions of the ghoul she always sees (and frightens her), offering a suggestion that these could be brought on by her “near death” experience. Because she’s proud and strong-willed, Hilligoss is willing to face the pavilion and address supposed illusions that cause her to fall prey to hysterics. She had talked about “not seeming to exist” when people no longer heard or saw her, and how it made her feel. Also coming up in her conversation with the man on the street (in his office) is how she doesn’t really associate well with those around her, not particularly desiring relationships or human contact, fine with isolating herself away from others. I like how the pavilion doesn’t seem so sinister during the day, yet director Harvey always indicates that there’s a possible presence there of some sort (eventually confirming this when his ghoul is under water nearby; there’s a more subtle scene using a float down a long, curvy slide and a POV shot with accompanying breath from a bird’s eye view peering at her from a distance as she walks away). I like how Hilligoss seems refreshed as if she’s ready to put all of the boogeyman stuff behind her (as if a false alarm) and relieved that perhaps it was all just in her imagination. I think there’s a catharsis here that also allows Harvey to take us to the pavilion to experience its spooky goodness. The catharsis is Hilligoss conquering whatever it is haunting her thanks to the talk with the would-be shrink (he doesn’t claim to be a psychiatrist, even point it out as such, yet you wouldn’t believe it by how he carries/conducts himself; he seems to talk and act like a head doc) by going to the pavilion, while at the same time, we get to spend a brief scene there taking it all in as she does.

There's that highly memorable "trance" where it seems Hilligoss is swept away while playing her employer's church organ, as if she doesn't have control of her hands, returning to the pavilion, seeing the ghoul rise from the water, members of his entourage dancing away in the carnival. She's totally entrapped by all of this, and the music that pipes from the organ isn't of merry hymns or devoted tunes to The Lord, but it has a menace, a bite. The priest is deeply offended by it, considering Hilligoss' Mary a lost soul in need of spiritual counsel. It is only he who seems to break her from the ghoul's spell; this as the ghoul approaches her, his outstretched arms reaching towards her.

I had mentioned previously that Carnival of Souls shares similarities (to me) with The Hitch-Hiker episode of The Twilight Zone. Well the scene where Hilligoss’ Mary accepts a date with the sleazy, always-four-sheets-to-the-wind neighbor (Sidney Berger), trying to console his aggravation when he confronts her aloof disinterest at a diner, even later inviting him in her room only to see the ghoul when he makes his seductive move, it also called to remembrance The Hitch-Hiker, when Stevens is driving a sailor on his way to San Diego, becoming increasingly paranoid and horrified of Death as he appears. Like the sailor does in that episode in regards to Stevens, Berger’s Linden isn’t about to stick around because Mary freaks him out with her off-the-wall behavior. Like Stevens, who seems on edge and unstable, Hilligoss’ Mary shows signs of starting to mentally fracture from her “hallucinations”. Before long, the running, the retreating, it will come to a conclusion. How long can any of us avoid the carnival?

When she realizes Utah was a bum trip, losing the organist job, no longer able to stay in the room as long as Linden is around and the landlady is snooping and worried about her mental state, still unable to shake the ghoul that constantly harasses her, Mary will pack her items and leave the area. Where will she go? Perhaps away from the pavilion will help her get back on the right track? Is it just Utah giving her the willies? Can a move away prevent any more apparitional shenanigans?

It isn't long after she leaves the apartment, heading into the street of the city to get her car's transmission checked, that the ghouls (led by Harvey, of course) really start to emerge to intrude upon her. She's spent enough time where she doesn't belong and it is almost time for them to come to collect. I think about how we fight against death with all we have, running and running, as Hilligoss does in Carnival of Souls. Most of the rest of the film, as she flees exhaustingly (and futilely) from Harvey and the flock, is almost totally without dialogue or active sound, mostly layered with a score that heightens the unease and impending doom.

As much as she runs, after visiting the doc's office, realizing that it isn't him sitting in the chair, as Harvey turns to surprise her, Hilligoss starts to clearly see what she's been running and from and why they're following her around. "They’re everywhere. They’re not going to let me go." The film gets a lot of mileage out of the city, the way she scampers about in a fit of hysterics, no one hearing her. She tries to board a bus, but the ghouls are there. She narrowly misses the train, but it wouldn't have mattered if Hilligoss had made it...they'd be there as well. So finally accepting what she's been trying to avoid, Hilligoss goes to the carnival. They are most certainly there.

Is there a more perfect movie for that slot about midnight/1 a.m. than Carnival of Souls? Along with Night of the Living Dead (1968) and White Zombie, Carnival of Souls, considering its position in The Domain, has made the rounds on cable access and local television stations needing to fill some time prior to the overbearing informercial’s intrusion upon late night / early morning. I can envision happy-go-lucky hosts of aluminum siding or “miracle clean towels” hawking their products between moments of Carnival of Souls. I believe prior to this current experience of the film, the last time I watched it was around 1 a.m. as it was the featured film in Turner Classic Movies’ TCM Underground during an October a couple years ago. I felt genuinely gripped all over again. I wish the first time I had watched it was by accident, really late, but it was actually part of a marathon (on sci-fi channel, hosted by Romero, I think; my memory is fuzzy, though, and I could be wrong) during the afternoon. It became an instant favorite of mine. 

I didn't realize it until I had read about the film a little bit one night that there's actually a colorized version. While I have talked on the blog about Night of the Living Dead before in color (another film that just doesn't really need it but is good either way regardless), I can't see this film functioning with the same power as it does in the ole B&W. I could be wrong, though. I might have to try it in color one day. I can't really put it in exact words, but the above scene where she becomes a member of the very congregation she tried so hard to outlast (well, part of her is among them while that last bit of resistance, that of Hilligoss still in a type of mortal form, remains an audience; this fascinates me, that of Hilligoss being both an onlooker and participant) captures me under its spell. I kind of zone out to it.

I love that, like the menacing Hinzman appearing from a distance in a graveyard to eventually attack in Romero’s Living Dead and that haunting face of Bela on White Zombie as he approaches the screen, Harvey’s devious smile maintains a hold over me I appreciate as a lover of the horror genre. I figure some will find Hilligoss’ bulging eyes and expression of bewilderment/anxiety (and this pitiable confusion) a bit too “Kabuki theater” but I just love her face and reactions to Harvey and his specters. She reacts as I expect many of us would during that particular situation. Considering the look and the makeup of the ghouls, the way the background sound dissipates into that unnerving score when life appears to be “ignoring” Hilligoss, and how she looks “out of place”, I think it was the right bit of casting. I just see Hilligoss and Harvey when this movie returns to my mind, my thoughts instantaneously evoking their final dance before she tries one last time to get away, her footprints and a handprint stop on the nearby beach with the pavilion just slightly in the distance, the doc and the Utah church priest (and police) curiously pondering what happened to Mary (her car was parked near the pavilion). Cut to the locals finally dragging the car from the lake under the bridge, a certain passenger exactly where she needs to be.

There's just something I find spooky about those "dark places" left to ruin and die, at one point quite the active epicenter for much amusement and joy, upon abandonment reminding us that all good things come to an end...like pavilions and life itself.