Carnival of Souls

Saw on a whim tonight. Learned the cult status afterward.
That first hallucination of the souls dancing at Saltair is O_o

top 10 all time fave

The American midwest in the late 50s/early 60s never looked more terrifying. (Yes, I know it takes place in Utah or whatever, but it was made by a Kansas team.)

Totally brilliant and worth the extra bucks for the Criterion version. Please post pictures of Saltaire here.

http://www.media.utah.edu/UHE/Pictures/p0000230.jpg

http://www.thesaltair.com/photos/saltair_wallpaper_slla1890s.JPG

v. good. i think i still have it on vhs -_-

I got it in a giant box of b movies (that also had Nosferateu in it!)
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The most recent time I watched it, it occurred to me that Beetlejuice probably used this as its starting point

Ha, only just recently snagged the Criterion issue of this used myself. Pretty stellar to see after endless MST3K invocations (speaking of, a new RiffTrax for this is due on Tuesday).

Big question in my head -- did either Stephen King or Kubrick claim any inspiration for The Shining from this? Seems pretty clear as a source.

I've never read anything about Kubrick or King drawing inspiration from this - it's possible, particularly in King's case, but my feeling is that CARNIVAL OF SOULS wasn't 'rediscovered' until some time after THE SHINING was released. CARNIVAL OF SOULS is also quite 'Lynchian', and - as was mentioned elsewhere - Kubrick was pretty obsessed by ERASERHEAD while he was making THE SHINING, so I think that might account for some of the similarities - tho' again, I don't know if Lynch ever saw CARNIVAL OF SOULS prior to making ERASERHEAD.

CARNIVAL OF SOULS is one of those 'public domain' movies (like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD), which means there are countless very poor DVD copies out there. In the UK, a company called Network have just released their edition, complete with a commentary by Kim Newman and Stephen Jones that might well address the whole SHINING/ERASERHEAD question - is there a commentary on the Criterion disc?

I watched this for the 4th (at least) time the other night with my parents, who'd never seen it. (Or who actually spent the entire movie trying to remember if they'd seen — "I don't know, this part seems familiar...") All enjoyed it. Anyway, it prompted me to look at YouTube for some of Herk Harvey's industrial/educational film and found this little gem. The messages are dubious — reciting nonsense about people putting razors in apples etc — but there are some great evocative visuals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGtpXmP_nQg