Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

I agree with all those who think Carnival of Souls is a sadly forgotten masterpiece of scary and unsettling horror. It's heartening to know it's being rediscovered by today's scary mover fans. All that said, am I the only person who noticed the origins of the name of the actress who played the lead character Mary Henry? That was Candace Hilligoss, whose surname name is an American English corruption of the German name Heilegeist, which is German for "Holy Ghost". Considering the character she played that's a spooky irony, but it's actually just a spooky coincidence. Director Herk Harvey had almost no money to pay actors, so he was desperately hiring the best people he could find in or around the University of Kansas who would work for little or nothing. Who can say if Harvey ever noticed this?

I'm a fan of Herk Hervey's "Carnival of Souls" - which, shot in 1962, was perhaps the first low-budget horror movie sensation - and I don't entirely know why.There are plenty of reasons to hate it. The acting is terrible. It was shot on the cheap, and oh my God, does it show. Hervey's ear for dialogue isn't just tin, it's Formica. The male lead would have in the 60s been called a pervert, and would now be called out on #MeToo.And yet, I can't help but be drawn to this film, because, like all the best horror movies, it speaks to a kind of anxiety that can't be put into words. Ever been nervous about getting home before dark? Ever felt someone walking too close behind you? Ever just felt afraid without knowing why? "Carnival of Souls" vibrates with that anxiety. It's the cinematic version of that queasy, unnerved feeling we all have from time to time, when we feel a terror we don't quite understand; like few movies before or since, it expresses nameless fear.The plot is thin, but gets the job done. Mary Henry (Candace Hildegoss) is the only survivor of a drag racing accident, and moves to a small town in Utah to start over as a church organist. During the trip to her new home, she is haunted by visions of a pale, ghostly figure (Hervey) who seems to mean her harm. This specter refuses to leave her alone, even as she seeks comfort in her daffy (to the point of brain-damaged) landlady (Frances Feist) and a friendly psychiatrist, and fends off the attentions of her drunken, beatnik neighbor (Sidney Berger). Finally, she confronts the apparitions that haunt her, with unexpected results (or, at least, unexpected for anyone who's never seen "The Sixth Sense")."Carnival of Souls" screams "acquired taste". Anyone would be forgiven for laughing at its grade-Z (even for the early 60s) production values. There's the horrible dialogue ("She's a tough-minded little thing", or "That's just what I need, get mixed up with a girl who's off her rocker!") The acting is horrendous, especially that of Hildegoss, who spends the whole film appearing dyspeptic, expressing fear as if it's a stomach-ache. An audience might also be excused for finding the main male character, who spends the entire film basically trying to rape the heroine, so gross as to turn them off. So, you might ask, why do I like this movie? I like it because it gives me goosebumps of the "unknowable fear" kind. Like Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" or the 90s horror film "The Blair Witch Project", it scares us with what we cannot see. Rather than relying on cheap, instantly forgettable jump scares, it slowly builds a sense of vague discomfort, a creepy atmosphere of dread. Plus, it inspired filmmakers like George Romero and David Lynch to make far superior films. Without "Carnival of Souls", there would have been no "Night of the Living Dead" or "Blue Velvet". Whatever its flaws, it's an important film, if only because it paved the way for other, better films to scare the living hell out of us.We watch horror movies to get a good scare. A film like "Carnival of Souls", that scares us on a basic, primal level, is always worth watching, even if it fails in every other way.

Poor acting, awful script yet I watched it to the end, so bad its good.....sort of

Films out of the ordinary are always interesting, especially if they are unpretentious and still demonstrate a uniqueness in lacking any similarity with other films. This is such a unique orchid in the garden of roses and weeds, which in addition is made almost without a budget, like a soup cooked on a nail, but it's a miracle of sustained concentration on the essence of filming all the way.A young girl emerges as the sole survivor after a car accident, where the car went into the river off a bridge, and she is a professional organist, who gets a job in a church in Utah in some small town close to a lake, where there are some remnants of past glory holidays and bathing in the form of a derelict massive tabernacle of a pavilion. She is drawn to this spooky place, but she suffers from her previous trauma, which somehow occasionally disconnects her entirely from reality, and this gets of course worse.The music is very important to the film. It's generally spooky organ music, she plays the organ well, and even the priest is satisfied with her, until she falls into a trance in spooky improvisations, which deeply upsets the priest, which really no one can understand why - it's just organ music and original improvisations at that. The music sets the mood, which is increasingly haunting all through the film.You could call it abstract, but it is really perfectly realistic all the way, especially in visualizing her disconnected moods. It reminds you very much of Polanski's "Repulsion" and Catherine Deneuve, but this is entirely different. This is more para-psychological, transcending the borders of life and death and giving a fair view of ghost existence. Mary's problem is she doesn't understand her own situation and therefore has no control of it, and as she can't get what's wrong with her, no one else can help her either, no matter how they try and do their best, from the landlady to the doctor. You might think that she will get things sorted out at last, while certainly none of the others will.This is a film you will never forget, especially if you are a musician and know something about the other side.