CARNIVAL OF SOULS

The sole survivor of a fatal teenage drag race, Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) leaves her life in Kansas behind to start over as a church organist in Salt Lake City. While travelling toward her final destination, Mary’s gaze fixes upon an abandoned roadside pavilion but is suddenly shocked by a terrifying vision of a pale-faced man (played by director Herk Harvey). His haunting apparitions continue upon Mary’s arrival, compelling her to return to the site of the crumbling amusement park.

Herk Harvey’s macabre masterpiece gained a cult following through late night television and lived a bootlegged afterlife for years. Made by industrial filmmakers on a modest budget, CARNIVAL OF SOULS was intended to have the “look of a Bergman” and “feel of a Cocteau,” but no other movie looks or feels like this. More than the sum of its parts, it approaches operatic beauty and moments of real lyricism, not to mention Lynchianism.

"As immediately and thoroughly disorienting as REPULSION or ROSEMARY'S BABY, but with a tantalizing cheap elegance. The simple cuts, the harsh lighting, the caked-on makeup, the tacky furniture. That perfect alchemy you see in the best trash cinema. Terrifying banality, the molecule-by-molecule ticking-off of our lives, radioactive decay." - Matt Lynch