Introduction to Carnival of Souls

Herk Harvey described to me a strange outdoor ballroom he had seen rotting on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. . . and said he’d like to make a film about creatures rising from the lake and doing a dance of death in this pavilion. That was the image he had and he asked if I would create a script encompassing that.

We decided the film would feature someone being chased, and since there wouldn’t be much budget, we couldn’t indulge in a lot of expensive effects.

While thinking about a character and a story, I was also trying to think of locations that would put atmosphere on the screen at little expense. And one of the places I thought about was the Reuter Organ Company here in Lawrence, Kansas. Reuter builds church pipe organs—and I had seen the room where they assemble and test these exposed pipes. And I decided to use that organ-testing room. And that gave me the idea of making Mary Henry an organist. . .which led to her going to Salt Lake City to work in a church. . .which caused her to drive past the old Saltair pavilion and so forth. . .

Once I established the lead character and the mood, the story flowed easily. I had one of those writer’s experiences where a film story just sort of unreeled in my mind—and night after night it was there on the mental screen like a serial.

I didn’t so much invent the story and write it as I did write the story and then see what I had invented.

From the writer’s angle, I was freed by the fact that I had no need to worry about Hollywood formats. I didn’t have to conform in any way. I knew who the producer and director would be, and that he would be open to whatever I proposed. It is, for instance, one of the few films from that period, or even today, that has no love story or romance, even as a subplot.

Also, you know, considering the miniscule budget, there are some good things in Carnival of Souls as far as direction and cinematography and so forth. I don’t know all the director’s secrets, but I do know I have a writer’s secret in Carnival that helps make it stay in the minds of some of its fans. Apparently, none of the many people who have written about the film has noticed it: I decided early on to give the heroine no real sympathy or understanding from any other character. For the viewer, there is no relief from her dilemma, no catharsis except what viewers create for themselves. I believe that is one reason the film tends to linger in the mind.

I wrote fast and had little time for revision, and it was my first film, so some of the lines translated into awkward and overblown dialogue. While many commentators noted that flaw, surprisingly few seemed to know that screenwriters also write the quiet, eerie, atmospheric scenes.

Reporters have asked why Carnival of Souls is still recirculating, playing theaters 30 years after it was made—when hundreds of other low-budget black-and-white films have been long forgotten. All I know is that the movie was created, directed, filmed and edited by people who loved the idea of making a picture—not to exploit anything or fit into any special niche, but just to make the best film they could with the limited resources available to them.