I begin this post with a plug for a local business which I have plugged before, Philly’s Breakfast House, 309 S. Caroline St., Herkimer.
Steven and I both had to work on Saturday, but our schedules were such that we were at least able to go out to breakfast together. Philly’s is a real hometown diner: friendly atmosphere, prompt service, good food. I had a Phils-a-wich — egg, cheese and sausage on a hard roll. Steven had eggs over medium with bacon and sourdough toast. It made my shift at work a little easier to get through.
Fast forward to early evening. I had a couple hours till Steven was expected home, so I decided to continue my extended Halloween by viewing a movie Steven is not overly fond of: Carnival of Souls.
The reason we even have the movie is that it is part of a two DVD set we purchased because it included The Brain that Wouldn’t Die. That is a movie we discovered back in the olden days when we were renting movies for our first VCR. I do love a cheesy horror movie (although I hate cheesy reenactments on crime shows, and I have no claims to being a Great Cheese Lady).
Carnival of Souls is a black and white low budget flick from 1962. I wouldn’t call it cheesy, although I suppose it has its moments. What it has in spades is atmosphere. It is weird and creepy.
The movie begins rather scarily with a drag race gone wrong. A car full of young girls plunges off a bridge. After hope of even finding the car “with this current and all this sand” (they mention the current and sand more than once) is fading, a lone survivor totters out of the water.
It seems she plays the kind of huge pipe organ you sometimes find in churches. Rather than take time to recover from her traumatic experience, our heroine drives through the night (with one scary little interlude) to her new job playing the organ at a church.
To her it is just a job, although her mentor at the organ factory warns her that she must put her soul into the music. When she tries the organ at the church, the minister says he believes he has hired an organist that will stir his congregation’s souls. Just so we don’t forget the title of the movie, I guess.
The movie makes copious use of organ music in maintaining the mood of weirdness and doom. I think my television needs a better sound system, because I kept upping the volume for the dialogue and lowering it during the musical interludes.
Soon strange things are happening to our heroine, ranging from the unsettling — as when suddenly nobody can see or hear her — to the frightening — when she keeps seeing this strange man. He looks a little like Bill Murray in Goth make up. I wouldn’t want to meet up with him. Things get more confusing — for her and for us — as the movie wends toward its creepy conclusion. Naturally I won’t tell you anything about that.
I’ve heard that the movie has something of a cult following. That could be. I admire its unsettling quality, and how they are able to do a lot with a little to create mood. It unsettled me. When it was over, I looked for an episode of “World’s Dumbest” to cleanse my mental palate.
Mohawk Valley Girl 