Carnival of Souls – A Kinda Moody Ride from 1962

So, I watched Herk Harvey’s “Carnival of Souls”… again, for maybe the fifth time? It’s funny. The first ever time I saw this flick, it was late November, pretty much pitch-black outside in Täby, and my friend Jonas had snuck out his dad’s projector. We all got chills, sitting on beanbags with chips everywhere. It’s got that sort of mystique: weird organ music, shadows everywhere, and enough awkward silences to make a Swede proud.

Candace Hilligoss, she plays Mary Henry, and she’s just brilliant at being all out of place. She’s not a household name exactly – not like Bergman’s folk – but there’s something about her eyes. Glazed, tired, Swedish fika-on-a-Monday-morning tired. You feel her discomfort, and honestly you can’t help wondering, is she even alive at all? Herk Harvey himself pops up as the pale ghoul, and honestly his face haunted my dreams for a week. He also directed the thing, which feels very “hej kompisen, kan du hjälpa till med filmen?”

The visuals, those washed-out black-and-whites and the run-down amusement park (Saltair! Utah looking like Göteborg after midsummer rain), are just incredible. You almost smell the damp. The sound too, jeez – like, that organ score, it’s like finding church music in your creepy basement. I think it got under my skin way more than I expected.

But yeah, sometimes it’s slow. Like, proper seg sometimes. Glacial, even. And some of the lines are a bit… wonky? Still, if you watch it at 2am, alone, you’ll probably not wanna head out to stugan by the lake after.

It kinda makes you think about being an outsider or just wanting to disappear when life’s a bit för mycket. Like a night bus home from Södermalm, you know? Spooky but brilliant in its own awkward way.

watch the full movie on Mavshack Movies on YouTube

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