Back in the early sixties it was a lot harder to make a movie on a shoestring budget than it is now. Little things like synchronized sound could be very daunting. This movie certainly shares the distinctly impoverished atmosphere of its kind, which sometimes works to its advantage and sometimes against it. The sound editing in particular hurts. The scene with the car radio doesn't work as well as it should because the music that's supposed to be coming over the radio is almost indistinguishable from the actual music score, dulling the impact. And one of the film's most notably eerie scenes (possible spoiler) when the heroine suddenly finds herself cut off from those around her, unable to hear them as they are unable to hear her, is undercut by the fact that many earlier sequences are also without sound due to the presumably limited resources of the sound editor, so the sense of something wrong isn't as strong as it should be. Other technical crudities tend to distance the viewer from the main character and her plight. That said, the movie has much going for it. It's intelligent and shows a strong imagination and flair for the bizarre. The acting is variable but frequently very good. And one or two sequences are as creepy as anything ever put on film, more remarkably so because it's hard to put your finger on WHY they're so unsettling. The ending is predictable, although perhaps it wasn't as much so when the film was first released. All in all a must see for true horror fans (although slasher geeks will doubtless be bored stiff).
Review of Carnival of Souls
