Carnival of Souls: 
Criterion Edition
 (1962)
review by Head Cheeze

Long before Bruce Willis ran into a boy who saw dead people or George Romero's first zombie gnawed at an entrail, a small band of filmmakers employed by an industrial film company set out to make a film that dealt with a subject matter that would make Rod Serling's head spin, and created one of the greatest horror films of all time. The good folks at Criterion realized this and gave Carnival of Souls the royal treatment it deserves in a two disc, extras packed volume that any serious fan should not be without!

Mary Henry (Hilligloss) is riding about town with her friends when they run into a group of bored locals who want to drag race. When the two cars meet on a bridge, the girl's car crashes and tumbles into the muddy river below. After a long search, Mary comes out of the river alone, the soul survivor, and returns to town to gather her things, as she was apparently leaving to take on a job as an organist in a new town. She leaves without cerimony and begins a long dream-like journey to her new home.

When Mary arrives she is immediately haunted by the spectre of a pale faced man (Conboy) who Mary thinks is stalking her, and following his "visits" Mary is thrown into a fugue like state where she panics yet no one seems to acknoweldge her existence! Mary seems to think this all ties in to an abandoned amusement park just outside of town and decides to investigate. What she finds is more than she bargained for, however, when the line between life and death, sanity and madness, becomes blurred beyond her, or our,comprehension. Fans of the film know where this is going, but even the casual reader can probably guess the film's climax. While I won't give it away in either case, it should be noted that back in 1962 this movie broke ground that would be treaded upon by dozens of filmmakers since. To say that Carnival of Souls was ahead of it's time is an understatement. One can only imagine the furrowed brows and scracthing heads of viewers back in 1962, because this is not only a creepy, surrealistic thriller, it's also quite the proverbial "Mind Fuck", which is to say it shares more in common with films like Jacob's Ladder or the aforementioned Sixth Sense than any of it's early sixties contemporaries.

Directed with the sterile style of his industrial film roots, Herk Harvey infuses a strange realism into the otherwise fantastic tone of writer John Clifford's screenplay, that really draws the viewer into Mary's world. The low-key organ score by Gene Moore adds an even greater level of dread and gives the film not only the feel of a Carnival, but subliminally:

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....let's us know we are also witnessing a funeral as well.

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Criterion's Carnival of Souls is a two disc monster, presenting us with the original theatrical version, as well as the longer directors cut, a documentary called "The Movie That Wouldn't Die" that contains almost an hour of rare footage from the 1989 reunion of cast and crew, a 45 minute deleted scenes reel, commentary by Clifford and Henry, an hour of scenes from the Centron Corporations eductional films (some made and scripted by Clifford and Harvey!), a video documentary called The Carnival Tour , which shows us what the locations used in the film look like today, as well as exhaustive amounts of essays, photos, montages, a theatrical trailer and, well, just so much stuff that it is really amazing that they managed to fit it all on Two Discs.

Both versions of the film look great, although only the theatrical version has been digitally remastered. The print is pristine, however, and is perhaps the best transfer of a film from that period yet! The directors cut is considerably more grainy and has the look of one of the lesser Carnival of Souls DVD's on the market, but is really meant to be watched with the commentary, so this makes up for it's visual shortcomings. The sound, while Dolby 2.0 mono, is crisp and the organ score will rattle the windows if you're so inclined to play it loud enough!

Criterion, as usual, has done this movie right. There is so much extra material here, one can literally spend an entire afternoon watching and still have leftovers for lunch the following day. This is one more DVD to join the elite list, and that ain't an easy task! While this film is currently still in print, it won't be for long, as Criterion tends to drop titles rather abruptly (Robo-Cop anyone?) and when these babies hit the collectors market expect to pay well over a hundred dollars, so get it while the gettings good, or face a fate worse than death!!

That's right! EBAY!