There’s no better way to whet your appetite for underground cinema.
As a big fan of cult movies from the 1950s and 1960s, I’m eternally grateful to the Criterion Collection DVDs, advertised as “a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films”. Criterion releases beautifully produced discs every month, and for my money the most valuable of their releases are old films that have been pulled out of obscurity, painstakingly restored and given new life on DVD.
One of my prize finds from their catalogue was Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls, a perfect example of a certain kind of low-budget horror film that can benefit from things which might otherwise be seen as flaws. After all, no other genre can make such a virtue of being shot on a shoestring budget. Technical backwardness can make a film creakily effective, and once in a while even incompetence has happy results: a jerky camera or careless editing can be unsettling in a certain context, and how many cases there have been — especially in zombie and vampire films — of mediocre actors unwittingly making a scene more effective because their reactions seem so unnatural, so removed from regular human behaviour! Which is not to say that the really good, low-budget horror films are “accidents”. Far from it. But the line between inspiration and serendipity does sometimes get blurred.
Carnival of Souls creates a very particular world where “regular” people and “normal” social behaviour are made to seem distant and strange, and where the object of our sympathy is an aloof young woman who might be a member of the Undead, living in a personal Purgatory without even knowing it. This woman is named Mary Henry, and she is played by Candace Hilligoss, whom I just can’t make up my mind about. Is this a case of superbly fortuitous casting and a reasonably talented actor making the most of the one role she was born to play? Or is Hilligoss a B-movie starlet fudging her way through a part that doesn’t require much effort or skill; where looking spaced out for most of the film works well enough for the character? The answer probably lies somewhere in between, but what matters is that this off-kilter “performance” is perfect for the role.
The film begins with an accident that results in Mary’s car toppling into a lake. A few hours later, she climbs out of the muddy depths, dazed and uncommunicative but in a hurry to get on with her life. However, she finds herself haunted at intervals by the vision of a ghoulish man, and simultaneously drawn towards a spooky abandoned amusement park. Meanwhile, the people around her become increasingly intrusive. A ludicrously solemn psychiatrist tries to unravel the mysteries of her mind, and a priest urges her to “save her soul”.
Cheaply made though, this film shows creativity, enthusiasm, a genuine sense for the disquieting moment. When Mary experiences out-of-body episodes where no one can see or hear her, there’s a visual gimmick that puts me in mind of Alice through the looking glass: a ripple runs across the screen, like a pebble skimming the surface of the lake. Also interesting is the compression of time in the early scenes, through the use of unexpected jump-cuts and fade-outs. All these techniques adds up to create a minor masterpiece of its genre.
There are, of course, many other little-known treasures in the Criterion kitty, and I don’t have the space to mention most of them, but strongly recommended are Kaneto Shindo’s Onibaba (“The Devil Woman”) and Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan (“Ghost Story”). Their DVDs are marked by elegant cover designs and disc-menu artwork, as well as carefully assembled special features. There’s no better way to whet a viewer’s appetite for underground cinema.
