Carnival Of Souls

[Steve.]

Anyone seen the original version of this? It was director Herk Harvey's only movie (1962). George Romero has said that it was the physical look of the zombies in this movie that inspired his "Night Of The Living Dead". The story concerns a young woman - Mary - the only survivor of a game of chicken between a carload of boys and a carload of girls. The girls' car goes off the bridge and into the river. After the accident Mary seems to be "changed", and she eventually leaves town to take a job as a church organist (gasp! a person without a soul working in a  church?) where strange things begin to happen. It's obvious from the start what the twist-ending will be, but it's worth watching just for the weird "acting". It's either incredibly wooden and stilted, or "naturalistic" (In other words it's wooden and stilted). Watch out for the "rapt" look on people's faces when Mary plays the church organ for the first time. A real good badmovie.

[Guitar Wolf]

Hold on pal! A real good BAD movie? This film is a classic Low Budget movie. Bad movie? Criterion released  a disc dvd of the Classic. This film along with Village of the Damned and Night of the living dead are three of the best low budget horror movies to come out of the 60's. A good bad film would be something like the Thing with two heads.

[Steve.]

Sorry GW, but every movie has something bad in it. In this case it's the atrocious acting.

[peter johnson]

Yeah, but the acting does help give it that eerie dream-like quality that directors like David Lynch went for in things like "Eraserhead".  And how about that set?  I own this thing & do savor it on occasion.