By PAUL KESLER

Carnival Of Souls a film released in 1962 and directed by Herk Harvey, has over the years attained an almost cult status among aficionados of the horror film. Yet while it shares with other cult films a superficially crude look owing to the impoverished budget on which it was made, the film has far more to offer than those with which it is usually grouped.

Carnival Of Souls was almost certainly inspired by the half-hour Twilight Zone episode, "The Hitch-Hiker," as Edmund G. Bansak has noted in his excellent book on Val Lewton, Fearing The Dark (McFarland & Company, 1995).   However, the differences are more interesting than the similarities.

The two dramas share the basic theme of a young, attractive woman who, after an auto accident, finds herself haunted by a male figure of death. In "The Hitch-Hiker", this figure is a drab, almost mousy-looking middle-aged man who shows up continually along the roadside and beckons to her as she makes her way cross-country. In Carnival, the figure (played by director Harvey) is more sinister, an older man with cadaverous eyes and lips, sparse hair, and an almost chronic leering expression. In both productions, the women become unwillingly and temporarily involved with young men who, though initially attracted to them, end up fleeing in terror when they discover their obsession with "imaginary" death-figures.

But while the plot-affinity between "The Hitch-Hiker" and Carnival Of Souls is too close to be coincidental, the former is too restricted in length for any elaboration of its core idea. This restriction, in fact, is why "The Hitch-Hiker" is little more than a clever gimmick, whereas Carnival by elaborating considerably on the skeletal plot, manages to move into more significant territory.

Carnival Of Souls also contains secondary elements found in other Twilight Zone episodes such as "A Passage for Trumpet" and "The After Hours" like Carnival, these episodes deal with characters caught in an afterlife, or at any rate, an intermediate state of being. To take one instance, in "A Passage for Trumpet," the protagonist, played by Jack Krugman, tries to make contact with two people at a movie theater after being killed by a motorist. He is unable to make them hear, however, and the similarity between this experience and that of "Mary" in Carnival Of Souls seems more than accidental. In light of these affinities, it's likely that John Clifford, who wrote the screenplay for Carnival, was a regular watcher of the Zone.

Fundamentally, Carnival Of Souls is a visual exploration of death, which, in the course of this exploration, sees death from a subjective point of view that is at times reminiscent of Carl Dreyer's "Vampyr". However, its subjectivity is far more radical than that of the Dreyer film, since Dreyer, concentrating to some extent on actual occurences rooted in a particular time and place, dwelt only sporadically on the inner consciousness of his protagonist. By contrast, it could be argued that everything in Carnival Of Souls other than the physical death of the main character is subjective in nature. As a result, we are forced into suspension of disbelief as to the reality-status of a woman who, though materially dead, continues to experience many things through "normal" consciousness. This paradoxical subtext will be discussed more fully later.

There are four kinds of death explored in Carnival Of Souls: physical; spiritual; emotional; and sexual. In reality, of course, all four "deaths" are merely different aspects of the same death, but for critical purposes it makes some sense to separate them. In so doing, it may help to keep in mind that the film is in no way a meditation on mortality, like some of Poe's more famous stories, but is far closer to an existential treatment of the subject from a more knowing contemporary perspective.

Of the four kinds of death in Carnival physical death is in some ways the least important, since it essentially serves as merely a device by which the other types of death can be delineated. This, of course, is why we only see the protagonist as an actual corpse in the final two scenes, only one of which could be considered "objective". Everything prior to these scenes (excepting the opening sequence of an auto "drag race" which results in the main character's death) is of an existential nature, since we see the woman moving and breathing in a world that is only superficially "normal" and material. Nevertheless, the ultimately physical nature of death itself is never allowed to be forgotten in Carnival since the macabre aspect of the figure which haunts her is never far away, and is always lurking in places and at times when she least expects it. It is physical death, moreover, which, by underscoring the other forms of death, helps to impress upon us the more terrifying aspects of death in general.

The ambivalence of the female protagonist toward death in its various guises is what lends Carnival Of Souls its continual tension. The woman works, for example, as a church organist, which might seem to imply a spiritual orientatation. But in an early scene we see her in a conversation with her music instructor, and she makes quite clear that "it's just a job to me." When he mildly chides her with "Mary, it takes more than intellect to make a musician. Put your soul into it," she merely turns and departs with a passive expression. This, clearly, is a woman devoid of soul, or, if she ever had one, has seen it "die".

The woman's spiritual aridity is dramatized in another way. Somewhat after the initial conversation with the instructor, we see her playing the organ, but with strangely dance-like exaggerations of her hands and fingers. The camera shifts downward momentarily to show us a glimpse of her bare feet as they animate the pedals in a sensual ballet, clearly meant to highlight the proverbial conflict between flesh and spirit. Among these shots are a couple which focus on the stained glass windows above her, where some penitential figures are shown with the words "Cast Out Devils" in white Gothic script. Meanwhile, what starts out as rather innocuous-sounding hymn music turns discordant, and as the music proceeds we see interspersed shots of the woman and a swirling horde of death-figures in the "deserted" pavilion nearby. This woman is obviously not "casting out devils"; she is conjuring them up. Only when the minister stops her with the words "Profane! Sacrilege!" does she finally break loose from her reverie.

In the foregoing sequence, while recognizing the ritualistic nature of the scene, we should note that the act of "conjuring" devils is a passive rather than a deliberate activity. Throughout the scene the woman wears a trance-like expression, her eyes widened in a vacuous stare as if mesmerized by her own performance. In point of fact, this sequence depicts a gradual onslaught of demonic possession, in which the woman unwittingly assumes the role of "accompanist" to the satanic danse macabre of the pavilion figures. What should have been an "exorcism" (as intimated by the stained glass portrayal) has instead been turned into a sacriligious rite.

However passive in nature, this ironic ritual can be seen as a culmination of the woman's ambivalence toward spiritual death, which is first touched upon in an early sequence with her minister-employer. When the latter suggests a drive through the country, she proposes that they make a stop by the old circus pavilion, which is, in fact, "deserted" from the perspective of everyone but herself. When the minister wonders what attraction the pavilion could have for her, she says simply: "Perhaps I want to satisfy myself that the place is nothing more than it appears to be." In actual fact, she senses, at some level of her being, that the pavilion is a physical metaphor of her estrangement, or, on a somewhat different level, a polarization of repressed desires. As such, it continually fascinates her, since she also senses that at some point she is destined to assume her place with the other "souls" who share her spiritual aridity. In short, this "carnival of souls" is the pole diametrically opposite that of the church in which she has taken up her music, and the early part of the film shows her continually vacillating between these points of dubious refuge.

The second part of the film is largely an exploration of sexual death, or repression. Indeed, this portion of the film in many ways anticipates Roman Polanski's treatment of sexual repression in Repulsion, which may have taken its cue from this film. Though Polanski's film is a far more polished and sophisticated production, it is actually more limited in scope than Carnival Of Souls since it restricts itself solely to a sexual dimension. But in terms of the intense isolation of the central characters in these films, and the gradual horrific irruption of "alternate" realities, they contain some interesting parallels. The primary difference lies in the fact that in Polanski's work, the central woman's insanity is already markedly advanced, whereas in Carnival there is uncertainty as to the balance of the woman's mind, and in the degree to which she relates, with at least a semblance of normalcy, to the world around her. In fact, this balance between madness and normalcy is the psychic analogue of her "balance" between the living and the dead, and her consequent ambivalence toward the surrounding landscape.

The portion of Carnival dealing with sexual death is perhaps its weakest section, primarily due to the crude acting of Sidney Berger in the role of "Mr. Linden". Nevertheless, the section is interesting for the obvious ambivalence shown by the woman toward Linden. For example, in her initial meeting with him, she is shown answering the door after stepping out of a bathtub. But in the brief interval following his introductory knock, we see Linden, in a close-up through the partially-open doorway, voyeuristically eyeing the woman, who is seen wriggling her slip to the floor. Though she rebuffs him in this first encounter, he manages to inveigle his way into her room on the following day, bringing some coffee with him.

This second scene with Linden and the woman shows her continually toying with him, ostensibly repelled by his interest, yet secretly delighting in it. She doles out repeated comments that are only thinly-veiled insults; and yet, immediately following the encounter, we see her smiling to herself, clearly pleased by her "conquest." In the next scene, she's in a department store trying on a new dress with the clear intention of furthering the relationship, or at any rate of enhancing her sexual allure.

On no occasion, however, does the woman really let herself go. It's hardly more than a pantomime she plays with herself, and in this sense it's much like the "pantomime" of her organ-playing, which on one level serves an apparent functional objective, but which makes pretensions to something more. In both cases, she vacillates between interest and boredom, and this continual wavering underscores her death-ambivalence.

In the final two sequences with Linden, we see him growing more and more exasperated with the woman's refusal to accomodate him. She, for her part, has grown sullen and taciturn, a far cry from her earlier mood of bantering amusement. "Maybe you just want to be alone" he says heatedly at one point, while they are seated in a bar. But she again contends with him, for a feeling of anxiety has taken over. We are made to realize that Linden's presence is the only thing keeping her death-fear at bay, yet, paradoxically, she is equally apprehensive at the prospect of sexual submission. We're almost tempted to regard her attitude toward Linden as just another "job"; i.e., a role she must assume to preserve a semblance of life. Yet there is no real life in the woman: sexually, as well as spiritually, she exists in limbo, somewhere between the living and the dead.

Fittingly, the Linden affair ends with a sequence in which the woman's death-figure reappears. First, Linden and the woman are shown entering her dark apartment. She tries, desperately, to fend him off, since, now that she is home, she no longer needs him as an anxiety-buffer. There is a brief struggle, but Linden wins out, trailing after her as she crosses the room. His expression is more gloating than ever, but no sooner has he grabbed the woman than there is a quick cut to her death-figure as he embraces her, and with an equally gloating expression. This death-embrace, as we are to see, anticipates a scene much later in the film when a similar union is shown among the carnival specters. Here, at any rate, the woman panics, frightening Linden off, who leaves with the comment, "Not me, sister...[I'm not getting] mixed up with some girl who's off her rocker!"

This climactic union of sexual and death-anxiety serves as analogue to a more pronounced withdrawal of the woman from the world of the living. Bracketed between the final scenes with Linden is one of several sequences where the woman loses contact with her fabricated surroundings. It begins with a scene mentioned earlier, in which she is shown in a department store, trying on a dress. She is all prepared to buy the dress, and says as much to the saleswoman. She retreats to a fitting room; there is a wavering ripple across the screen; then, abruptly, the sounds around her cease. In absolute silence, she returns to the saleswoman, repeating her desire to purchase the dress, but the woman fails to hear her. Looking apprehensively about, she wonders aloud why no one can hear, for staff people and customers pass obliviously by her. Finally, as the sequence segues into an outdoor venue, she is seen strolling absent-mindedly in a sunlit park. The sounds of the world have returned, and she basks in the sunlight pouring through the trees as the sound of birds floats above her. All seems peaceful and normal again until, with equal suddenness, her reverie is broken by a man at a drinking fountain. She looks up at the man (whom we do not see), and screams.

No sooner has she recoiled from this experience than a middle-aged man grabs hold of her and tries to calm her down. "It was that man!," she cries, still terrified. "That man!" But the other one continues to placate her, explaining that he is a doctor and that he would like to help. The subsequent scenes with this doctor constitute the film's exploration of emotional death.

In the first of these sequences, the doctor attempts to "diagnose" her encounters with the recurrent death-figure. Along the way, he elicits her attitude toward the people in her life, and divulges her fundamental solitude. Responding to a question about relationships, for example, she says, "I just don't seem capable of the close company of other people", which echoes, and seems a belated rejoinder to, an early caveat by the minister: "You cannot live in isolation from the human race." Similarly, when the doctor asks her if there is any man in her life, she answers, with angry vehemence, "No, and I have no desire for one!"

These sequences, like those with Linden and the minister, end dramatically with the manifestation of her death-fear. In the second scene with the doctor, she is shown in a near-hysterical state, having just returned to him for some critical advice. The doctor, meanwhile, has turned around in his large swivel chair to make notebook observations, and the high back of the chair conceals him. Finally, in what is certainly the existential climax of the film, the woman cries out, "Doctor, you've got to tell me what to do!" At which point the man swivels slowly into view, and, in a shot reminiscent of Psycho, we see the woman's death-figure grinning triumphantly into her face.

During the remaining portion of the film, the woman is engaged, for the most part rather desperately, in a flight from death. Her only significant involvements with the "real" world, moreover, take place at an auto mechanic's shop and in a bus depot; i.e., in two places where travel is the symbolic objective. In the first of these, after arrival at the shop, she asks the mechanic if she can remain in the car while it is hydraulically lifted for service. But here, too, a sense of terror overcomes her, for she suddenly spies the silhouetted outline of her death-figure poised in the sun-bathed entrance to the shop.

In the second "escape" sequence, after yet another case of auditory "blackout", the silence is broken by a peremptory voice from the loudspeaker: "Eastbound bus...now loading". But no sooner has the woman boarded the bus than she sees that it is filled with the cadaverous revenants from the pavilion, and she flees in panic.

Following the bus sequence, the woman ventures, at least in imagination, to the deserted pavilion for the second time in the film. But now the place seems darker, more ominous, and it is not long before we once again see several death-figures rising from the nearby lake, followed by another vision of the figures swirling about in a spectral dance. Among the various pairs, however, is one special couple, and as the woman looks vacantly on, they gradually sweep to the foreground. Ultimately we see that it is the woman herself, now changed to a waltzing corpse, locked in a grim embrace with the death-figure who has haunted her throughout the film. In the background, the discordant organ music grows increasingly frenzied, until suddenly the music stops, the dancing figures halt, and at the center of the crowd is the woman's corpse-like double, her body bent back in a swooning posture, and on her face a smile of grotesque sexual ecstasy.

In the first of two final scenes, the doctor, the minister, and a policeman are seen inspecting the site of the woman's death, where her body lies sprawled in a flurry of footprints. The next scene, returning us full circle, shows the woman as she was near the outset of the film, a drowned corpse seated in the car in which she died.

These, then, are the principal plot sequences of Carnival Of Souls as related to existential solitude. Nevertheless, there is one further sequence which in many ways forms the centerpiece of the film, and which, standing apart from the others, needs to be weighed separately. In this sequence, which follows her initial visit with the doctor, the woman is shown willingly exploring the carnival pavilion, and in this sense it is unique in the overall context of the film. Moreover, the volitional aspect is relevant given the fact that at no point in her walk through the pavilion does she encounter the death-figures who "inhabit" it. In fact, as if to underscore this, we are permitted to witness the presence of the main specter who haunts her, while the woman herself remains oblivious. His face appears briefly as a reflection in the pavilion lake, just after the woman has tossed a small pebble into the water from the building's upper level. But the expression on the face, which seems to stare up at her as she looks into the distance, is curiously impassive. It lacks its usual sinister aspect, and the woman, for her part, is actually smiling to herself as she turns around to leave. For the moment, at least, she seems genuinely satisfied that "the place is nothing more than it appears to be."

What are we to make of this sequence? We might expect the woman to be most intensely frightened at precisely the time she is exploring these haunted grounds. Yet, with only minor exceptions, she appears more tranquil and undisturbed here, and for a more extended period, than at any other point in the film. Even when a mattress is shown sliding down a long delivery ramp, as if pushed by a spectral hand, she simply watches it curiously before moving on. This whole sequence would therefore seem to demonstrate the consequence of a deliberate attempt on her part to "meet" death on its own terms. Just prior to this sequence, in fact, she has disclosed to the doctor her resolve to put a stop to the hauntings she has suffered by visiting the pavilion and, in effect, "facing down" her tormentor. If this is the case, it would illustrate the fact that so long as a confrontation can be made, it may reward rather than victimize. Tellingly enough, this sequence marks the only time in the film where the woman is a conscious agent rather than a passive and cowering victim. If any mood can be said to dominate this sequence, in fact, it is contentment rather than terror.

In any event, it remains to account for the status of this woman during the overall course of this film. On one hand, she is unquestionably dead, as the frame sequences at beginning and end clearly demonstrate. Otherwise, we could take the death of the woman in strictly metaphorical terms, and her experiences would simply be those of an intensely alienated woman. And there is, of course, nothing to prevent us from interpreting the film on this level, as far as that interpretation will take us. Yet, just as obviously, her physical death shows that the supernatural is at work on a fundamental level.

Carnival Of Souls, in fact, is more than simply a multi-faceted treatment of death, though that would be enough to make it memorable. It is also a Catholic-influenced exploration of the afterlife, even if it is neither explicitly Catholic in any of its aspects, nor even particularly religious by any of the usual standards. In light of the main pavilion sequence, which paradoxically distances the woman from her death-fears, we can see her as occupying a kind of self-conceived purgatory. And though the possibility of escaping this limbo is present from the start, she rejects the option at almost every turn. Instead, her personal demons gradually subjugate her until, by the end of the film, she has clearly entered a private hell, along with the other lost souls in this carnival landscape.

Returning, finally, to the question of reality-status, we must not only deal with the issue of "subjective" versus "objective" events in this film, but must also distinguish between two levels of subjectivity within the mind of the central character. Obviously, in terms of the first question, there are only two events in the film that can be unequivocally termed "objective": the crashing of the woman's car in the river, with her resulting death, and the recovery effort by the townspeople in lifting the car from its watery grave.

But this still leaves us with the second consideration of subjectivity-levels. First, an early shot of the woman climbing from the river onto a sandbar immediately after the accident; second, the next-to-last scene in which the doctor, the minister, and the policeman are examining the woman's corpse in the sand. Are these "subjective" events? And if so, whose "subjectivity" is being tapped in the second instance? Obviously, the penultimate scene cannot represent a "real" death, because the woman cannot simultaneously have died in the sands outside the pavilion and in the car hauled up from the river. And how can we discriminate between, say, the woman's "real" exploration of the pavilion early in the film, and her seemingly "imaginary" venture through that same pavilion at a much later stage? Finally, what can be made of the fact, first, that a corpse can be endowed with consciousness, and, second, that that consciousness can be afflicted with periodic blackouts in which one's "normal" sense of communication vanishes? "It was almost as if for a time I didn't exist," explains the woman to Linden at one point, as she muses on one of these experiences.

These questions, of course, though interesting, cannot really be answered, and do not need to be, since they are merely artifices intended to explore the woman's plight, and to elaborate her status in a world which continually verges on transcendence. Moreover, we can at least construe them in a metaphorical light, to explore the nature of existential anguish, and the relationships between emotional, spiritual, and sexual estrangement.

It is all too easy to fault Carnival Of Souls from a technical standpoint. Much of its direction is crude, and most of the locations have a one-dimensional look owing to unimaginative lighting and pedestrian camera angles. (There are exceptions, of course, such as the "conjuring" scene where Hilligoss experiences a form of demonic possession at the organ.) In addition, the rhythm of the film is disjointed, with one scene jumping to the next with little sense of style or pacing. Even the organ score, which succeeds in eliciting an eerie mood throughout, fails to genuinely "bridge" these disparate sequences. The acting, for its part, is inconsistent, only Candace Hilligoss in the central role achieving a really credible extended performance. Obviously, these deficiencies cannot be ascribed solely to budgetary limits, since Val Lewton, under similar constraints, turned out films that were marvels of style and elegance. Nevertheless, Carnival's technical flaws are more than counterbalanced by its enormous strengths on a thematic level. In this sense, the film is almost the antithesis of Hitchcock's "Psycho," which is infinitely superior on a technical level, but which has virtually nothing to offer thematically.

James Dickey once wrote that the author of Dracula could hardly have been aware of the many subtextual themes in that famous novel, and that much of what occurred within it was fortuitous. We might be tempted to say the same thing of Herk Harvey, the director of Carnival Of Souls whose status as a maker of industrial films would seem unlikely to lead to a concern with deeper meanings. Even John Clifford, the screenwriter, has claimed that he merely wrote a horror story, with no greater ambitions in mind. We certainly can't ignore these facts or disclaimers, but neither should we ignore the fact that many productions--written or filmed --contain meanings and symbols that may very well transcend what their makers consciously intended.

In addition, there are problems in treating Carnival as nothing more than a narrative. For one thing, there are too many scenes in the film that cannot be ascribed to coincidence. The events that occur are not mere points on a plot-line; to the contrary, they are far less important from a narrative standpoint than for what they say about the protagonist and the various forms of anguish she experiences. Radical subjectivity has rarely been carried so far, and as a result, the scenes in the film are not so much "events" as states of being, catalyzed by spiritual, psychological, and emotional factors. In this film, to a greater degree than any other in the history of the field, the character dictates the surroundings, not the other way around.

Paradoxical though it may seem given the technical crudities of the film, Carnival Of Souls may be the most profound and complex work in horror cinema since Caligari, and like that earlier film, it reveals new dimensions with each viewing. For whether we see the film as a religious vehicle, a psychological tableau, a commentary on existential angst, or a series of unresolvable metaphysical questions, there is no doubting its major status in the horror field. Unfortunately, too few films in the genre have bothered to confront the themes which motivate it, or managed to confront them in so unobtrusive a manner. It may be that Carnival, almost ignored on initial release, will ultimately stand as the most significant commercial horror film in the last half of the twentieth century.

Thanks, Paul!  You've certainly made clear the underlying themes that make Carnival so haunting.   Perhaps a final apt observation would be that this is one little film that, once viewed, is never forgotten.

Article copyright © Paul Kesler

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