Like so many low budget 60s horror movies, Carnival of Souls has become a cult classic. Some internet research shows it's regularly screened before large crowds at Halloween or other horror-themed film festivals, making the viewing of it often a social event. I found it in a greeting card store, a cheaply sleeved holiday theme dvd in a pile of Halloween merchandise, and brought it home to watch alone. It follows a young church organist, Mary, who is unwittingly caught in a drag race with a group of boys. She emerges from the wreckage eerily altered and with no ability to explain how she has survived at all. Mary is, of course, dead, and obliviously continues to go about her "life," increasingly torn between the world she identifies as her own, and the foreign world of the dead. Though her work keeps her within the safe confines of the church, she is never a believer ("it's just a job") and regularly seeks help in doctors instead of her ever-accessible priest. This isn't, however, a straightforward sin story. Mary doesn't drink, doesn't dance, and has no interest in men. The carnival is hell for the quiet reserved young woman with no interest in social gatherings. It is a sort of Jacob's Ladder for the irreligious but still uninteresting. The dead dance, stalk, swim (well, lurk creepily below water, but they certainly seem to enjoy it as much as the living love the pool), and generally seem to demand the frequent social interaction that Mary so firmly resists. My copy of the movie came bundled with White Zombie and an ancient episode of "Casper the Ghost," in which it is revealed that Casper, much like Mary, just can't get behind the seemingly endless social revelry of the undead: "Not Casper. He'd rather stay home, and not frighten people." Me too. I loved this movie for its visual aesthetic and for its use of the organ, but mostly because I found the premise really effectively scary. I don't like to go out, and if death means a heavily made up eternity of hanging out in a large uncomfortable crowed, then I'm cultivating a much more committed fear of death. I watched it alone, phone turned off, gripping my pillow with white knuckles, and anxiously browsing the website of Aubrey de Grey. [Photo: Mary attempts to take a solitary drive and is disrupted by eager friends demanding a ride]
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Carnival of Souls
Like so many low budget 60s horror movies, Carnival of Souls has become a cult classic. Some internet research shows it's regularly screened before large crowds at Halloween or other horror-themed film festivals, making the viewing of it often a social event. I found it in a greeting card store, a cheaply sleeved holiday theme dvd in a pile of Halloween merchandise, and brought it home to watch alone. It follows a young church organist, Mary, who is unwittingly caught in a drag race with a group of boys. She emerges from the wreckage eerily altered and with no ability to explain how she has survived at all. Mary is, of course, dead, and obliviously continues to go about her "life," increasingly torn between the world she identifies as her own, and the foreign world of the dead. Though her work keeps her within the safe confines of the church, she is never a believer ("it's just a job") and regularly seeks help in doctors instead of her ever-accessible priest. This isn't, however, a straightforward sin story. Mary doesn't drink, doesn't dance, and has no interest in men. The carnival is hell for the quiet reserved young woman with no interest in social gatherings. It is a sort of Jacob's Ladder for the irreligious but still uninteresting. The dead dance, stalk, swim (well, lurk creepily below water, but they certainly seem to enjoy it as much as the living love the pool), and generally seem to demand the frequent social interaction that Mary so firmly resists. My copy of the movie came bundled with White Zombie and an ancient episode of "Casper the Ghost," in which it is revealed that Casper, much like Mary, just can't get behind the seemingly endless social revelry of the undead: "Not Casper. He'd rather stay home, and not frighten people." Me too. I loved this movie for its visual aesthetic and for its use of the organ, but mostly because I found the premise really effectively scary. I don't like to go out, and if death means a heavily made up eternity of hanging out in a large uncomfortable crowed, then I'm cultivating a much more committed fear of death. I watched it alone, phone turned off, gripping my pillow with white knuckles, and anxiously browsing the website of Aubrey de Grey. [Photo: Mary attempts to take a solitary drive and is disrupted by eager friends demanding a ride]
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