Oh!Carol Christmasson
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She was bitching about the wardrobe?Mary Quant.
She was bitching about the wardrobe?Mary Quant.
Maybe she didn't like her own designs.She was bitching about the wardrobe?
Oh, here it is!:Is the original CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962) a haunted house movie? Well, the entire pavilion seems to be haunted.
Directed by Herk Harvey, Candace Hilligoss is in a seemingly fatal accident when her car goes off the side of a bridge. Her carmates all drown, but she wanders up onto a sand bar, mysteriously alive. She drives across Kansas and promptly loses her new organist job when she veers from the hymnal in favor of some dancing demon selections more appropriate for a church of satan. Her lecherous boarding housemate wants a piece, but she's not giving it up, despite being chased by a goblin through most of the picture.
Eventually she winds up back at that pavilion she finds so entrancing (although it's actually in Utah).
There, a party awaits her, and she's the guest of honor.
Filmed in that twilight zone of the early-'60s where creepy is effortless, the shoe-string budget only served to enhance the effect... It's the end of the world, bitches..!
Oh, I watched it!Oh, here it is!:
I think my favourite kind of horror is the one that has the right amount of additional emotions (sadness, despair) rather than just being frightening.Filmed in that twilight zone of the early-'60s where creepy is effortless, the shoe-string budget only served to enhance the effect
As I've often said: if you don't have the sad then you don't have the scary.I think my favourite kind of horror is the one that has the right amount of additional emotions (sadness, despair) rather than just being frightening.
I just watched some parts of it on YT, and it clearly shows why the remake trumps the original: the set design.William Castle's HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959) has all of the right elements to make up a nifty haunted house movie, and yet none of them at all.
THE INNOCENTS (1961) From that same era, Jack Clayton directs Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" scripted by Truman Capote. Another repressed spinster (Deborah Kerr) goes to serve as governess to two spooky children in a huge British mansion.
The story seems to involve too doomed and unhealthy, departed lovers inhabiting the souls of the kids.
There is a lot of contention out there as to which film is better, THE HAUNTING or THE INNOCENTS. For me, THE HAUNTING has the edge. Because despite how many brilliantly-realized macabre vignettes and montages you'll find in THE INNOCENTS (and Freddie Francis' deep focus B&W photography is breathtaking, although the DVD is unforgivably washed out), the narrative in THE HAUNTING holds together better.
I also have a complaint about the leading lady in THE INNOCENTS. Kerr considered this to be her favorite role, and I found her to be an intelligent person, but I also find her to be a bit too shrill and "actressy" in THE INNOCENTS and it distracts from the movie. (Yes, Harris is shrill, too, in THE HAUNTING, but that always strikes me as being more character-appropriate somehow; I suppose Kerr's character is supposed to be equally neurotic, too, but I always find myself blaming the performer in her case, not the role).
Funnily enough I felt exactly the same way about Deborah Kerr's performance and also found her to be shrill and histrionic
--------------------------------------------------------------------Well, now that I've seen THE GHOST OF SIERRA DE COBRE (1965), it's very heavily atmospheric, with a sometimes startling sound track. It looks and feels more like a cross between an early DARK SHADOWS episode and a B&W instalment of NIGHT GALLERY than it does TWILIGHT ZONE (it was intended to be a TZ-type series had CBS chosen to pick up the pilot). It also kept reminding me a bit of Seth Holt's Hammer film TASTE OF FEAR (1961).
I can see how kids in the '60s found TGOSDC so intensely spooky. It is.
Dame Judith Anderson is on hand to provide the Scorpio Rising creepy factor (although didn't anybody tell Judy that being billed with your title isn't protocol??) Of course, she and perpetually brittle Diane Baker are the stars of this thing. Don't miss Martin Landau's endearing seaside duck walk in the first reel.
Oh, look, Popmatters just did a little review of it today:
https://www.popmatters.com/ghost-of...no-2613941069.html?rebelltitem=5#rebelltitem5
Oops it was Taste of Evil, with Barbara Parkins. I couldn't get into it.
I went back and watched this a few nights ago and actually really enjoyed it and managed to finish it this time. You are right the second half is better and it's wonderfully campy. Stanwyck's character turns out to be a really evil twisted bitch.Yes, the first half really drags, but the second part is fabulous camp.