HCW: Carnival of Souls
Title: Carnival of Souls
Date Watched: January 10, 2013
Date Released: September 26, 1962
Starring: Candace Hilligoss, Frances Feist, Sydney Berger
Running Time: 84 minutes
Rating: 4 out of 5
My mom was eight years old when the first movie of our Horror Movie Classic marathon came out and I’m sure she was left with at least an eerie feeling when she saw it. The loud organ music alone is a little horrifying. I wonder how much it cost to install such a huge instrument anyway. I mean, it’s so big it needs its own room. That’s big.
I love driving scenes when you’re in the car with someone for like a full minute and the entire time their eyes are everywhere and anywhere but the road. I did jump a little during that scene, I’m not too proud to admit it. The guy is super creepy. In color he probably would look comical, but in good ol’ B&W, he looks absolutely uncanny.
The way the minister watches her play the organ is super creepy because of how exaggerated it is and then there’s the maid who walks away, turns around to gaze longingly into the camera, walks away, and does it again. Apparently there’s something about the way she plays that just captivates everyone. Or maybe she’s just really good and I know nothing about organs.
Just when you think it couldn’t get any weirder, in walks the neighbor. He’s weird in a greasy, scummy type of way, but I think that way of most of the men in films from the 1960s. I think they were trying way too hard to be charismatic and charming, coming off as just downright cheesy and unlikable.
The CoS guy strikes a very striking resemblance to Billy Connelly’s title character in Fido, which I had the pleasure of watching recently.
It wasn’t until the shopping scene when everything comes to its inevitable halt that I realized how stunning Candace Hilligoss is. The way she pops that one eyebrow up… absolutely beautiful in a Storm Large type of way, you know that way when you can tell that the woman isn’t trying at all, but can’t help but be completely captivating. Good organist or not, the woman has an amazing bone structure. As the movie progresses, she gets more and more attractive.
The sacrilegious-organ-playing scene was super disorienting and great. I enjoyed it and it still really stands out for me.
Greasy neighbor just kept getting grosser and grosser. I was completely terrified, taken aback, and relieved to see that it was the Fido look-alike kissing her neck and not the greaseball neighbor.
I loved the lady who owned the house. The way her eyes got all big and she’d look up at the ceiling as if she could see the woman upstairs.
The bus full of Fido-esque people was really weird, but by then I was so obsessed with the sound of the woman’s heels that I wasn’t able to be freaked out completely. It had to have been added in later by a guy with a couple cups or something because the sound of the heels was just so crazy off-tempo and randomly fast or slow.
When the woman goes back to see the good doctor that tried to convince that she was crazy, she realizes that she has to go back to the old carnival grounds and that the Fido-esque people are trying to take her to where she belongs. She was supposed to die in the car accident in the beginning of the movie, but she didn’t so she’s stuck in this sort of limbo. She gets to the carnival grounds and the Fido-esque people, who now look like people celebrating the Day of the Dead, begin to dance around – twirling around and around in a frenzied carousel way. She freaks out and runs, they run after her, and silent running and random laughter ensues until she trips and they fall upon her. All the authorities – or in this movie, the minister and the doctor – find is her car, her footprints and a handprint by a muddied bit of sand. Somehow they find the car from the beginning of the movie and the woman and her three friends are dead inside.
Notable Quotes:
“It takes more than your intellect to be a musician. Put your soul into it next time.”
“It’s these old houses. They’re so big you could hide a man in every corner.”
“Now me, I don’t just drink really. I really drink.”
“They can’t see me. Why can’t they see? Why?”
Date Watched: January 10, 2013
Date Released: September 26, 1962
Starring: Candace Hilligoss, Frances Feist, Sydney Berger
Running Time: 84 minutes
Rating: 4 out of 5
My mom was eight years old when the first movie of our Horror Movie Classic marathon came out and I’m sure she was left with at least an eerie feeling when she saw it. The loud organ music alone is a little horrifying. I wonder how much it cost to install such a huge instrument anyway. I mean, it’s so big it needs its own room. That’s big.
I love driving scenes when you’re in the car with someone for like a full minute and the entire time their eyes are everywhere and anywhere but the road. I did jump a little during that scene, I’m not too proud to admit it. The guy is super creepy. In color he probably would look comical, but in good ol’ B&W, he looks absolutely uncanny.
The way the minister watches her play the organ is super creepy because of how exaggerated it is and then there’s the maid who walks away, turns around to gaze longingly into the camera, walks away, and does it again. Apparently there’s something about the way she plays that just captivates everyone. Or maybe she’s just really good and I know nothing about organs.
Just when you think it couldn’t get any weirder, in walks the neighbor. He’s weird in a greasy, scummy type of way, but I think that way of most of the men in films from the 1960s. I think they were trying way too hard to be charismatic and charming, coming off as just downright cheesy and unlikable.
The CoS guy strikes a very striking resemblance to Billy Connelly’s title character in Fido, which I had the pleasure of watching recently.
It wasn’t until the shopping scene when everything comes to its inevitable halt that I realized how stunning Candace Hilligoss is. The way she pops that one eyebrow up… absolutely beautiful in a Storm Large type of way, you know that way when you can tell that the woman isn’t trying at all, but can’t help but be completely captivating. Good organist or not, the woman has an amazing bone structure. As the movie progresses, she gets more and more attractive.
The sacrilegious-organ-playing scene was super disorienting and great. I enjoyed it and it still really stands out for me.
Greasy neighbor just kept getting grosser and grosser. I was completely terrified, taken aback, and relieved to see that it was the Fido look-alike kissing her neck and not the greaseball neighbor.
I loved the lady who owned the house. The way her eyes got all big and she’d look up at the ceiling as if she could see the woman upstairs.
The bus full of Fido-esque people was really weird, but by then I was so obsessed with the sound of the woman’s heels that I wasn’t able to be freaked out completely. It had to have been added in later by a guy with a couple cups or something because the sound of the heels was just so crazy off-tempo and randomly fast or slow.
When the woman goes back to see the good doctor that tried to convince that she was crazy, she realizes that she has to go back to the old carnival grounds and that the Fido-esque people are trying to take her to where she belongs. She was supposed to die in the car accident in the beginning of the movie, but she didn’t so she’s stuck in this sort of limbo. She gets to the carnival grounds and the Fido-esque people, who now look like people celebrating the Day of the Dead, begin to dance around – twirling around and around in a frenzied carousel way. She freaks out and runs, they run after her, and silent running and random laughter ensues until she trips and they fall upon her. All the authorities – or in this movie, the minister and the doctor – find is her car, her footprints and a handprint by a muddied bit of sand. Somehow they find the car from the beginning of the movie and the woman and her three friends are dead inside.
Notable Quotes:
“It takes more than your intellect to be a musician. Put your soul into it next time.”
“It’s these old houses. They’re so big you could hide a man in every corner.”
“Now me, I don’t just drink really. I really drink.”
“They can’t see me. Why can’t they see? Why?”
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| The creeptastical "CoS guy". |
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| Candace Hilligoss and her remarkable eyebrow arch. |
I love that movie!
ReplyDeleteIt was so good! One of my new favorites! I'd had it on my Netflix-to-watch list and never got around to it and I'm so happy that I got to see it. Atom Age Vampire - movie #2 - wasn't as good though.
ReplyDelete