The film’s stilted expressionistic no-budget atmosphere is one of a kind - it’s equal parts Ingmar Bergman and Ed Wood. loneliness that you plug into like a private dream. ![]() More than just scary, it’s arrestingly odd, with a bats-in-the-belfry 3-a.m. But then it was discovered, over the years, on television, and to me there’s a special reason for that: Carnival of Souls may be the ultimate horror film to watch late at night on TV. It was made by a small team of industrial filmmakers from Lawrence, Kansas, led by director Herk Harvey, and it originally played in obscurity on the B-movie exploitation circuit. Because Carnival of Souls is a movie that anyone who loves horror movies simply has to see. The film was revived once in commercial theaters, back in 1989 (if you ever saw it, speak up - I’d love to know your thoughts!), and I hope that Insidious prompts a whole new round of interest in it. It’s called Carnival of Souls, and it’s a creepy little black-and-white cult movie, made in 1962 for $33,000, that in its low-budget way is a symphony of scary faces. The film that arguably influenced it the most, though, is one that a lot of people haven’t seen or probably even heard of. Insidious has been directed, by James Wan ( Saw), in a highly effective spooky manner, but there’s no denying - it’s almost part of the movie’s fun - that it echoes several notable horror films of the past, like Poltergeist and The Exorcist. ![]() Faces that stare and smile and hover, and eventually turn out to be part of the spirit world that Patrick Wilson, as the besieged father, must enter - when he’s roaming around in it, it’s like a fun house designed by David Lynch. The characters in Insidious, the terrific and blessedly scary new horror film, are menaced by ghosts, but a better way to put it would be that they’re frightened by faces.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |