I'd say Mike did his best, but this film was so amazingly soul-crushing, he couldn't make it entertaining.
Agree? Disagree?
Just bought the DVD. I hope it's good.
"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" for 12/1/89
(https://forum.rifftrax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.joebobbriggs.com%2Fdrivein%2Fimages%2Fcarnivalofsouls.jpg&hash=1a671ad0f3ef54dd11caeab1f9e457569726a208)
Candace Hilligoss was the most attractive zombie in movie history in "Carnival of Souls"
By Joe Bob Briggs
Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas
I'm getting a little sick of this stuff. First they did it to "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Then they did it to "Blood Feast." They're starting in on "Suspiria." And now, the latest victim of an Attack by Zombie College Professors is . . .
"Carnival of Souls"!
It always happens the same way. First somebody makes a perfectly decent drive-in movie. Like "Carnival of Souls" was made in 1962 in Lawrence, Kansas. It was made for real people. Normal people. People who love zombies, ghosts, and dancing bloody corpses. But when they first put it out, nobody understands it. No, wait, lemme correct that. The people that go see it understand it. But the critics don't like it, and the theater owners don't like it, and the distribution company thinks, well, "it's kind of a strange movie." And the church doesn't like it, because it seems to be making fun of religious people. And so it just kinda dries up and peters out, and the original investors lose all their money, and then ten years later it turns up on the Late Late Late Show, and you're watching it and you say, "Hey, look, he ripped that off from George Romero in 'Night of the Living Dead.'" But then you see that the movie was made in 1962, five years before "Night of the Living Dead" existed. Bingo! Cult classic! All of a sudden people wanna know, "Who is this guy?"
And so then a bunch of guys start doing research, and they find out that "Carnival of Souls" was made by a guy named Herk Harvey, and this was the only feature film he ever made, and it stars a gal named Candace Hilligoss, and this was the only starring role she ever had. And then you find out that Brian de Palma stole a lot of the stuff he used in "Carrie" from "Carnival of Souls," and then the next thing you know--oh my God! no! not that!--the New York Times is writing about it! (Like the time Vincent Canby of the New York Slimes decided to review "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"--eleven years after it came out!)
And then somebody that works at a film museum decides to go back to Lawrence, Kansas, and find Herk Harvey and see if they can't get a perfect, mint-condition, 35-millimeter print of the movie, and then it gets its "World Re-Premiere" at a film festival somewhere. (In this case, the rediscoverer was Gordon K. Smith, and the festival was the USA Film Festival in Dallas.) And, before you know it, you've got 900 guys in suits paying $500 each to watch a movie that, in 1962, they would have forbidden their children from seeing. And, in fact, just last week, "Carnival of Souls" was shown in Lawrence, Kansas, for the first time in 27 years, as a benefit for the "Lawrence Film Commission." Herk Harvey was there. John Clifford, the writer, was there. All the original investors were there. And it was sponsored by the Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau!
Now. This is great, Herk. Hope you make some money out of the deal. But "Carnival of Souls" had its real premiere at the drive-in. And it will always be a drive-in movie, even though Panorama Entertainment is putting it out on video this winter. I'm sure there will be books written about it. Candace Hilligoss will get a bunch of movie offers. Maybe Herk will even make a sequel. But let's draw the line with this one. Let's not let Siskel and Eggbert and Leonard Maltin and the UCLA Department of Film claim this one for themselves. These are the same guys that call "I Spit On Your Grave" the most disgusting movie ever made. Why? It's not old enough yet. It hasn't been reviewed by the New York Slimes. It hasn't been shown at the USA Film Festival. For all the people who watched "Carnival of Souls" at the drive-ins of America and didn't need some Goonie Professor to tell em it was a great movie, let's reclaim this one for the good guys.
First of all, it's a zombie movie. It's not about "existential angst," "a bizarre concoction of Cold War idealism and paranoia," or "a symbolic parable." It's a zombie movie. In fact, the star of the movie, Candace Hilligoss, is the most beautiful zombie ever to appear in a zombie movie. The fun of the movie is that you're never really sure when she's being a zombie and when she's just being a ditzy stuffed-shirt church organist. (Think about it. Doesn't your church organist look like a zombie?)
Candace is the only survivor out of a car that gets run off a bridge during a game of "chicken," but once she gets out of the water she loses her desire for men, for beer, and for her own family. Normally these are character traits women are born with, but it takes a good dunk in the river for Candace to get them. Next thing we know, all she wants to do is play the church organ at all hours of the day and night, and poke around in this creepy abandoned amusement park where the zombies come every night to waltz. A doctor tries to tell her she's just having "a guilt feeling." The man who lives across the hall tells her she's "off her rocker." The preacher says she's "profane." Her landlady says "You just let your imagination run away with you." The guy at the gas station says she has "a transmission problem." And the zombies tell her "Come with us. Come and dance." What's a poor single girl in a strange town to do?
I'll just put it this way. She wears out quite a few pairs of high heels running to where she's got to go. If you saw the "Hitchhiker" segment of "The Twilight Zone" . . . this is where Rod stole it from.
No breasts (1962). Nineteen dead bodies. Approximately 15 zombies. One motor vehicle chase, with watery crash. Zombie bus tour. Church organ Fu. Zombie Fu. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Candace Hilligoss, for saying "I don't belong in the world" and "In the dark, your fantasies get so far out of hand"; Frances Feist, as the creepy old rooming house lady, for saying "You can take all the baths you want"; Art Ellison, as the minister, for saying "You cannot live in isolation from the human race, you know"; Sidney Berger, as the letch next door, for saying "You're gonna need me in the evening, you just don't know it yet"; and Herk Harvey, for producing, directing, and playing the Head Zombie.
In the Drive-In Hall of Fame. Four stars.
Joe Bob says check it out.
Yeah, it's pretty dreary, but I still love it. The creepy, abandoned amusement park was an awesome setting for a horror flick.