I sometimes see films from the criterion collection. They focus on classics and important films only, which is great, as I'm quite picky and if I'm feeling like watching just about anything, they are quite a good place to stick my hands in, blindfolded — whatever I pick, it's likely to be a good one. If I dislike it, well, it's just a bad day. Rarely I've been disappointed by them though. And this is how I came across Carnival of Souls, an independent horror film by Herk Hervey.

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The plot, if you care for that sort of thing

A young woman, organ player by profession, gets in a car accident and drowns in the river along with her other friends who were with her in the car. But only she makes it to the shore alive. Later, to escape from the said traumatizing event, she leaves the city and takes a job as an organ player for a church in another city. But she soon starts to see a ghoulish man, stalking her everywhere, with the characteristics of a drowned person. She cannot mingle with the new town people and moreover some strange, abandoned carnival house with a sickly, rotting, deathly complexion attracts her, she cannot ignore the lure.

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The film felt to me like an inexpensive B movie from the start because of cheap looking stunts and I later understood why that is. The filmmaker apparently shot the entire thing on a $33,000 budget and in three weeks. He also used guerilla filmmaking techniques to cut costs. Guerilla filmmaking is when a film crew quickly shoot scenes without acquiring film permits, and get away. Like how guerilla fighters fight. Sudden, swift and precise.

There was some minor screenplay weirdness and the lead actress also felt quite out of place to me, due to her exaggerated facial expressions. And I don't think she played organ in real life. The director tried not to focus on her while playing it, when he did, I'm no expert but the key pressing and the sound that is produced are not synchronized and feels disorienting. I tried to imagine how they arranged and shot the scenes, "look miss, you just sit there pretty like and tap away the keys, you hear me? Yes, tap away 'em keys! And we'll add the music later on!"

But the music (an original score by Gene Moore) and the cinematography of the film are actually the life of it. These are the reasons the film is hailed as a work of art today, many years later. The eerie, solitary, desperate feeling they created throughout the film weighed heavy on my nerves as I followed the protagonist through the city, accompanied her in her hallucinations, periods of non-existence and fright. The editing is done masterfully as well. And for such a low budget, Hervey did some crazy shots!

He himself acted as the ghoulish character, a fine performance. The best in the film. I later learned he taught theater.

I had a good time watching the film, perhaps its more important for its influences on other works in the genre and but as a separate work all by itself, the viewing experience should be worthwhile for anyone as well.

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