57 Days to Halloween- 1962 Carnival of Souls

Over the next 100 days, I will present one movie of significances in horror, suspense or thrillers for each year from 1919 to 2018. The next film presented here is the 1962 independent horror film "Carnival of Souls" starring Candice Hilligoss and directed by Herk Harvey.

Carnival of Souls (1962) 

Dir- Herk Harvey

A Church organist survives a car crash and finds herself followed from Kansas to Utah by a pale-faced stranger. The woman arrives at her destination and shacks up at a boarding house, and soon enough she encounters some of the locals. She has a hard time relating to people around her and is strangely drawn to a crumbling lakeside pavilion. Once there the woman encounters dancing couples that may or may not be living. Is this lady facing actual ghosts or is she among the living dead? The Carnival of Souls is both haunting and influential, being a low budget film shot by an amateur director makes it even more of a horror treasure. Although it was lost in obscurity, it has found a whole new audience with showings at art house festivals, late-night TV, and video. A unique and genuinely creepy film that is best known as the inspiration for George Romero's all-time class terror classic Night of The Living Dead.