Samhain is a Gaelic word, pronounced (Sah-wihn). According to the History Channel: It's also "a pagan religious festival originating from an ancient Celtic spiritual tradition, is usually celebrated from October 31 to November 1 to welcome in the harvest and usher in "the dark half of the year". Celebrants believe that the barriers between the physical and spirit world break down during Samhain, allowing more interaction between humans and denizens of the Otherworld."
Today is Samhain, and also the end of my little project. Also today has a perfect film for the Breaking down of the physical and spiritual world:
Carnival of Souls is a tone poem for the damned. It's a darkened soliloquy, that as good as it looks, it puts you off your guard, because you're uncertain of where it's going, given its realism. You don't feel any more in control watching this than the lead character is in what's happening to her.
A young woman is in an incredibly stupid car accident at the beginning, and of the three girls involved, she's the only one who appears to survive.
She immediately leaves town, taking an organist job at a Utah church. She lives in a rooming house while there, across the hall from a quasi-incel who you grow to despise. Fuck it, you hate him from the jump. (at least I did.) The kind woman she rents from and everyone else in her new life is worried about her because she is increasingly and obviously coming apart at the seams, due to the incredibly creepy beings that seem to be stalking her from the woodwork, yet drawing her to an abandoned amusement park at the same time.
I first saw this on USA's Night Flight circa 1985 and couldn't quite figure out what I was being faced with. Who could blame me? I was 14. However, now I see it as an immense work of visual art with a tight script and solid acting assembled by inexperienced Kansans with limited resources to say the least. George A. Romero (the maestro, rest his soul) himself said the film inspired him to make The Night of the Living Dead (one would think the Richard Matheson I am Legend film The Last Man on Earth probably contributed to that too). It certainly makes sense, despite the different intensities the two films engender.
Carnival of Souls has quite a history behind it that one should research if they have the chance, as all involved deserve accolades for creating something completely unique in its time despite an environment that probably didn't support its stylistic choices. This was the era of radioactive monsters and Edgar Allan Poe films, after all. Roger Corman would have never touched this one. IMDb even states a factoid that the lead actress (and damned good here, I'll note) Candace Hilligoss was dropped by her agent after seeing the film. It took guts and elbow grease to make Carnival of Souls, and The Criterion Collection noticed that and documented it in 2017.
This is a movie saturated with Halloween vibes, and I heartily recommend it.
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