Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962)“Scenes such as this send Mary into a frenzy as she tries to di
Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962)“Scenes such as this send Mary into a frenzy as she tries to discern whether the problem is coming from within or without. She is flanked on her trip through this purgatorial landscape by authoritative men who position themselves as ‘guides,’ and there is much about the film that exploits this tension between Mary and the condescending men around her. The doctor — who admits he’s not a psychiatrist but presses her to divulge her problems anyway; the priest — who urges her to save her damnable soul; the letch — who threatens her with sexual assault morning, noon, and night; and the man — who, like the titular hitchhiker in the aforementioned Twilight Zone episode, appears as Mary’s doppelgänger and the harbinger of her death. As the film repeats and substitutes identities, it implies that all the men are one, and that all the men are reflections of Mary’s hostility and transience. Mary is doomed. As her colleague quips at the beginning of the film, 'If she’s got a problem, it’ll go right along with her.'” — Kier-La Janisse. -- source link
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