Conference bookie::movies

126.0. "Carnival of Souls" by DSSDEV::RUST () Thu Apr 08 1993 23:01

    "Carnival of Souls" is a (very) low-budget, early '60s horror flick,
    which I'd somehow managed to miss (despite the many hours I spent glued
    to the set watching every other low-budget, early '60s horror flick I
    could find). But, thanks to the kindness of strangers ;-), I've finally
    gotten to take a peek at it.
    
    And... well, it isn't quite the "lost classic" that so many of the
    horror-film references claim it is, but it's surprisingly good for the
    style, budget, and talent involved.
    
    It starts out with three young women out joy-riding, who accept a
    challenge to drag-race with a carfull of young men. They wind up racing
    neck and neck on an old trestle bridge, and the womens' car goes
    through the railing, to be lost in the river below. A rescue effort is
    mounted at once, but the river is too deep, fast-flowing, and sandy;
    they can't find the car. A crowd of onlookers gathers - there's a dandy
    shot of their shadows crossing the shadow of the bridge, as it falls on
    the sandbar where the rescuers are at work - and one of them cries out:
    someone's climbing out of the river...
    
    One of the women has, somehow, survived, but can remember nothing of
    the accident, nor of how she, alone, got out alive. But she doesn't
    stay around to brood about it; she's just gotten her first job, having
    trained long and hard for it, and wants to leave town to take it up.
    
    The job? She's an organist. Yep, this little town hosts an organ-making
    plant, and our heroine has been training there. (She must be good; we
    see her at work on a huge pipe organ in the middle of the plant
    somewhere, and as she plays all the workmen stop what they're doing and
    gather around. (I didn't think she was quite up to the level of the
    _great_ horror-movie organ players, such as the Phantom of the Opera,
    or even Dr. Phibes, but she _was_ just starting out. Give her time.)
    
    So. She hops into her trusty car and heads cross-country for her new
    job, and new life, as a professional church organist. [Well, OK, so it
    isn't glamorous - I'd say it beats being a professional camp
    counselor, which is what most young people in horror movies seem to
    be.] On the way, the midwestern landscape gets flatter and drearier, 
    punctuated only by a derelict carnival. [The carnival buildings were
    desolate and nicely creepy, perched at the edge of a shallow, brackish
    lake.]
    
    The intrepid heroine hasn't escaped completely unscathed from her
    near-drowning; during her drive-straight-through trip, she finds
    herself occasionally hearing things (like strains of organ music - but
    is it a church organ or one from a carousel?) and seeing things (like
    pale, washed-out faces appearing outside the car windows). But she puts
    it down to exhaustion and goes on about her business - settling in at
    the nice boarding house with the pleasant-but-talkative landlady,
    fending off the advances of the wonderfully sleazy boarder-across-the-
    hall, and introducing herself to her new employer, the local minister.
    [That actor plays his role in the stiff-as-a-board style that's
    traditional for authority figures in this genre. He's to be given
    credit; nobody could talk that stiltedly in real life. Could they?]
    
    But all is not Bach and (whoever-else-it-was-that-wrote-ecclesiastical-
    organ-music). She keeps seeing mysterious people with pale, washed-out
    faces, but nobody else sees them. And sometimes she hears strains of
    music that nobody else hears. [And, other times, just to keep us
    hopping, the director has thrown in some organ music as background,
    which nobody hears but us.] And _then_ she loses all hearing; the world
    goes silent, and what's worse, people don't seem to be able to see
    _her_ at all. And the pale people draw closer...
    
    Well. In practice this is all a little clunky, a little stiff - the
    camera work is good, but the pace is leisurely, and while much of the
    obnoxious dialog is "true-obnoxious," it's still... obnoxious. But the
    conceit is a nice one - is something odd really happening, or is she
    losing her mind? [Or, of course, both?] She has visions of nightly
    revels at the abandoned carnival grounds; she's caught up in them while
    practicing the church organ, and finds herself playing something she's
    never heard before, some music of Lovecraftian evil that so horrifies
    the minister that he summarily fires her.
    
    And THEN things get REALLY interesting.
    
    Er, well, no they don't, actually. In fact, the plot winds along more
    or less predictably. But it's done quite well; grainy-black-and-white
    is perfect for the visuals, making everything look not-quite-right and
    vaguely sinister, and adding another layer of decrepitude to the
    tumbled-down carnival and the quiet, decent-or-is-it little town. I
    have a feeling that if I'd seen this movie late one Friday night, as
    one of the "Nightmare Theater" presentations, it would have left me
    completely spooked and afraid to peer into dark corners or even look
    out my bedroom window, lest I see one of those faces looking back.
    
    And there was one scene that really _did_ surprise me; ever so casual,
    yet very well-designed, and thoroughly creepy. "Nightmare on Elm
    Street" (which may, in fact, owe an idea or three to this picture)
    didn't jar me like that one scene did.
    
    So. Big points for atmosphere and execution, especially considering the
    budgetary constraints; some deductions for variable acting quality, and
    [though it's hardly the director's fault] for plot elements that have
    become familiar through over-use. If only I could have seen it in
    '62...
    
    -b