EVERY ARTIST'S WORST NIGHTMARE BECAME ACCLAIMED, INFLUENTIAL CULT FILM 'CARNIVAL OF SOULS'

Screen captures from Carnival of Souls, a 1962 independent horror movie which cost $33,000 to make and ended up influencing George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, 1968. Above, the undead au carnival. Director Herk Harvey made industrial and educational films in Kansas, but had an advanced visual eye. This was his only feature film, which has become an acclaimed cult favorite, despite Harvey experiencing every single artist's worst nightmare happening during its production...

The image above was supposed to be the last shot of a long climactic sequence of the undead slowly and eerily rising from the waters of a half dried up lake next to an abandoned amusement park. But the development lab terminally wrecked that reel of film. The budget did not permit a re-shoot, even though the initial promo art for the film already featured an artist's concept of it.

Instead, the film is remembered for its myriad, arty visual touches, for being one of the few horror films of the era besides Hitchcock's Psycho for basing the plot on a credible female protagonist, and for being a successfully realized high concept of a commercial director who never again made another feature...