Carnival of Souls

Plot synopsis:
While out for a drive, three girlfriends get into a car race with two boys. As the car chase takes them down backroads, they come to a bridge. Trying to get across it, the girls car ends up crashing through the side and the car sinks into the water.Some time afterward, a search party is brought out, but after several hours, there appears to be no sign of the car. However, things take a turn for the surprising, when one of the girls, Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss), emerges from the water, cold and shaken. Some people ask her questions, but she does not give any answers at that time.Some time afterward, Mary gets a job as an organ player in Utah. Before she leaves, she stops by the organ factory in town, and places on their organ for them. The place she is going to has an organ made from the same factory as well. When the Factory owner requests that Mary come back some time to play for them again, she claims she will not be returning.Mary then takes off on her trip. As she nears Salt Lake City, Utah, her vision is drawn to a dark pavilion lying back a ways towards the horizon. As she glances out the passenger side window, she is shocked to see a man staring in at her! Mary turns away and looks back, but the figure is soon gone. However, Mary is shocked again when the same figure appears on the road in front of her, causing her to drive off the road. Collecting herself, Mary gets back on the road, and heads towards Salt Lake City.Mary rooms at a residence, presided over by a woman named Mrs Thomas (Frances Feist). There is another person rooming at the house, a rather slimy warehouse worker named John Linden (Sidney Berger).After putting her things in her new residence, Mary goes off to the church to meet the Minister (Art Ellison). She practices on the organ, but after some time, stops and sits by a window to contemplate. The Minister asks her if she would like to take a ride with him to an appointment. Mary also makes a request that since the appointment is outside of town, if they could drive by the pavilion she saw on the way in.The Minister agrees, and they drive up to the entrance. The Minister explains that the place is gated off to keep people out. Mary seems curious to go in, but the Minister says he won't, given that there are rules forbidding people to enter.Returning back to the apartment, Mary takes a bath, but is interrupted when John knocks on her door. He offers to buy her dinner, but she refuses. After John has left, Mary walks out and looks over the railing, only to see the man she saw before standing in the 1st floor foyer! As he walks towards the stairs, Mary returns to her room and bolts the door. Sometime afterwards, Mrs Thomas comes up with a sandwich and some coffee. When Mary inquires about the man she saw, Mrs Thomas claims she didn't see anyone on the way upstairs. Mary insists she saw someone, but the landlady claims that Mary's mind must be playing tricks on her.Mary soon after attempts to go to sleep, but her mind finds itself drifting away to the pavilion.Waking up, Mary finds a knock on the door, and John enters offering homemade coffee. As they talk, Mary then explains to John her job as being an organist for a church in town. John thinks that Mary must be a very religious girl, but she explains that she doesn't care either way, and that she plays just so she can get paid. Mary thanks him for the gesture, and then goes out to shop for clothing.Going into a Department Store, she tries on a dress, and then changes back into her own clothes. However, upon exiting the dressing room, Mary is surprised when it seems that the sound of the world has stopped around her, and nobody can hear or see her! Wandering out of the store and into a nearby park, she breathes a sigh of relief when she hears some birds chirping, and the sounds of the world seem to start up again.Going over to a drinking fountain, Mary stops to drink, but upon seeing a black suit in front of her, Mary looks up and panics! Rushing over to a nearby man, she insists that the man by the drinking fountain is the one she's been seeing...but it soon appears she was in error, even though Mary insists it was him.The man she rushed to is a Doctor. Intending to calm her down, he takes her to his office nearby, and listens to everything Mary has to say. The Doctor assumes that the appearance of this apparition to Mary may have something to do with the trauma she experienced after surviving the car crash. When pressing Mary to see if the figure resembles anyone she knows, Mary insists she's never seen the man before. Feeling that the man may have some connection to the abandoned pavilion outside of town, Mary decides to go there, cutting off the Doctor in mid-analysis.Mary soon arrives at the abandoned pavilion, and begins to walk around. Strange things happen here and there, but she soon calms as she walks around.Returning back to the house, she meets up with Joe who again offers to take her out to dinner. Mary claims she already ate, but when Joe offers to pick her up after her organ practice at the church, Mary agrees, claiming she doesn't want to be alone.Mary then goes to the church, but as she plays the organ, something strange comes over her, and she finds herself playing a strange, and eerie melody on the organ. As she plays, a vision comes to her of a group of people inside the pavilion's enormous ballroom area, dancing. Each of them resembles the man with pale skin, and dark areas around their eyes.Suddenly, the Minister's hands press down on Mary's, ending the song. The Minister is shocked at the music that Mary has chosen to play, and orders her to resign from her post. At these words, Mary quietly gathers her things and leaves.Outside, she runs into John, who eagerly takes her to a club. John keeps trying to be sociable to Mary, but she just seems distant and unable to respond, even though she claims she likes being with him.Going back to the house, John attempts to get intimate with Mary, but she does not seem to welcome any of his advances. As she goes over to her dresser with a mirror on it, John walks up behind her, but to Mary, the reflection is that of the eerie man she's seen before! Mary then yells for John to stay away from her, and John leaves, as Mary pleads that she doesn't want to be alone.The next day, the doctor whom Mary had met previously shows up. Inquiring to Mrs Thomas, she explains that Mary was moving furniture in her room around all night, and would not let her in in the morning. The Doctor claims he gave Mary advice, but Mrs Thomas claims to the Doctor that she doesn't want Mary lodging with her any longer. The Doctor then assures the landlady that Mary intends to leave soon.Sometime afterwards, Mary packs her suitcases, and quietly leaves the house, not saying a word to Mrs Thomas when she speaks to her.Mary's car gives her transmission trouble, and she ends up going to a local service station. When the station attendant asks her if she wishes to get out of the car, Mary refuses. She stays in the car as it is lifted into the air on the service station's platform. As a customer pulls in for gas, the attendance leaves Mary alone in the garage.As she waits, she hears the sound of a door open, and heavy footsteps. A hand then turns the release valve for the lift, and the car slowly lowers to the ground. Mary has the doors locked, but as she hears something that makes her back towards the passenger door, it suddenly flies open!Mary runs for her life down the street. As she does so, suddenly she finds that like in the Department Store, she has become invisible to people, as well as the sound of the world cuts off.Rushing into a bus station, she finds tries to buy a ticket, but the attendant will not listen. Suddenly, a loud speaker blares of a bus leaving from gate 9. Mary rushes from the gate and quickly rushes onto the bus...only to be met with the wide-eyes stares of the apparitions she saw dancing in the pavilion's dance hall! They smile and chase her off the bus as Mary runs for her life, calling out and pleading for someone to hear or see her!Mary returns to the park from the day before, and just like the day before, she hears birds chirping and the sounds of the world start back up again. Mary then rushes to the Doctor's office, requesting that he help her,feeling that she is really going crazy. The Doctor's chair has been turned away from her, but as it turns around, she finds the man from before sitting in it! Mary lets out a scream--and wakes from her daydream, still in her car in the garage (though the lift is now down instead of up). Mary quickly throws the car into reverse, and heads out of town, back to the pavilion.Going into the abandoned ball room, she soon finds the same apparitions she has seen in her dream (as well as on the bus). Slowly, they start to dance. Mary watches, and as the music begins to turn eerie and the beat of the organ fills her ears, she cries out and runs off, with the apparitions in pursuit. They chase her all over the pavilion grounds. Mary tries to escape but falls and lies screaming as the dead-eyed figures close around her.Sometime afterward, a search party looking for Mary finds her car at the Pavilion's gates. Searching the grounds, they find her foot prints rushing off into a sandy area, and an imprint on the ground where her body was, but no sign of her.Back in Kansas, the search party has finally recovered the car that fell into the lake. After pulling it out of the water, we see that not only are the other two girls still in the car, but so is Mary's body as well!

Tags: cult, psychedelic, atmospheric, gothic, haunting

Review: