Carnival of Souls (1962)
There is something about the monochrome picture, the low-budget aesthetic, and the slightly unnerving music which means this could easily have been an episode of The Twilight Zone, but has a longer running time and is a quite exceptional feature film.
There are parts of the film which are not too dissimilar to Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965), perhaps due to the design and overall feel and the female lead. This is paying it a huge compliment, as Polanski's film is a masterpiece.
It's a wonderfully atmospheric and unnerving chiller, and the AV quality on the Criterion Collection Blu-ray release is superb.
The Criterion Collection Blu-ray release has a scene specific commentary with director Herk Harvey and writer John Clifford, which is okay, but would have benefited from a moderator and have three people sitting in the same room. Spurred on by a comment from Demdike, I ordered the Network DVD release this afternoon solely for the Kim Newman and Alan Jones commentary.
|