Carnival of Souls

A group of girls is run off the road on a crumbling bridge. The car is lost to the mud in the river, and as the townspeople surround the accident site, one of the girls rises up out of the water and onto the banks. Not much time is given for the girl, Mary (Candace Hilligoss) to gain her bearings, as she flees the whole traumatic event for Utah, working as the church's organist. But not long after she settles in, she starts to see the face of a man, unnamed with a pale face, maniacal smile, and black eyes. He follows her everywhere she goes: in her new apartment, in the window of her car, and prominently at a derelict carnival on the edge of town, to which she's strongly drawn. A few other creepy things start to happen, and Mary occasionally falls into bouts of ghostliness: unknown and unseen to the rest of the world, yet still walking among them. There's a cheap quality to CARNIVAL OF SOULS: it's too jumpily edited, and drowned in its obviousness and an incessantly playing score. But there's a redeeming quality to CARNIVAL OF SOULS in its atmospheric tension, and what's effective given the small budget. This is supported by the suspense created by the what the hell is happening to this girl in the earlier part of the film, but talents are all on exhibit in the final scenes, which all culminate to a wonderfully creepy climax in the carnival, complete with a great scene of the laughter of the dead irrespective of the pacing and chasing that's on screen.

★★★/5