Thus begins Herk Harvey's 1962 cult classic Carnival of Souls, a VERY creepy movie made even creepier by the creepy organ soundtrack.
So Mary's the only survivor - or is she? After crawling out of the river, she decides to leave town and start a new life as a church organist in Utah. We never really got a chance to meet Mary before the accident; but based on what everyone in town seems to be saying, she's a changed woman. She's cold and lacking in any emotions. In her opinion, working at the church is simply a job. (Quite frankly, she's not the first person I've met in church work with that attitude.)
From the very beginning of the movie, Mary appears haunted. Shortly after the accident she visits the bridge, silently re-living the tragedy in her mind. Then as she travels from Kansas to Utah, the radio station keeps playing the same song over and over again (oh wait, I think that was just a glitch on the part of director Herk Harvey ;-) --- and then, driving through Utah she sees The Man, first in the passenger window and then standing in the middle of the road just a short distance from the abandoned amusement park. Mary is haunted, or so it seems.
Part of my interest in this movie has to do with the question: What happens to our souls when we die?
As a xian, I lean towards the traditional belief --- that at death our soul goes immediately to heaven or hell where it awaits the final judgment.
As an open-minded individual not given to religious dogmatism (and honest about my own inability to know everything with complete certainty - a certain amount of xian agnosticism I suppose for lack of a better term - although I would just call it honest humility), I'm open to the possibility that some souls might not go directly to their final resting-place, but might actually linger here on earth to haunt the living. I can't and won't say for certain --- I'm just saying I'm open to that possibility (and I believe xian scripture neither denies nor confirms but allows for such a possibility).
Regardless, it seems clear to me that upon death the soul separates from the body along with whatever life-force kept the blood flowing and the brain waves moving. Quite frankly, that opens a whole can of worms when it comes to keeping someone alive on artificial life support after all brain waves have ceased - but that's another topic for another time. My point is, when the body dies, the soul leaves. If the soul returned to the same body, it would be a resurrection (ala Jesus Christ or Lazarus) or possibly what is referred to as a near death experience (NDE).
But what if the body could be revived or re-animated without the soul? What would you have? How different would the re-animated corpse be from the living person you knew before death? Excluding the probability of brain damage resulting from lack of oxygen to the brain at death --- would the revived person without the soul still qualify as human? Or would s/he just be an animal functioning on instinct. Could it love? Really love? Would it have a conscience?
This topic is addressed to a certain extent in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and certainly in the George Romero-genre zombie movies. It also comes to play in some of the more traditional vampire stories (pre-Anne Rice, that is) and Wes Craven did a good job handling this topic in his made-for-television movie Chiller (not a great movie, but a very interesting story line).
SPOILER ALERT!
If you haven't yet seen the movie, read no further...
If you haven't yet seen the movie, read no further...
An animated body without the soul: I see that as part of the story in Carnival of Souls; but quite frankly I can't piece it all together. Mary is obviously dead when she crawls out of the river. That becomes more and more clear as we get closer to the end of the movie. But how her body was simultaneously in the river and also wandering around Kansas and Utah is beyond me. It's just clear to me that the body that crawled out of the river was missing its soul. It still had enough of a mind to know it was Mary Henry - but it really wasn't Mary Henry anymore, was it?
Of course there are those scenes where Mary is invisible to everyone and they are inaudible to her. The second time time this happens (while she's waiting inside her car for the gas station attendant), it seems like a dream; but what about the first time around? Are we tracking her soul-less body through part of the film and her body-less soul the other times? And then there's that scene towards the end where Mary is once again at the abandoned Pavilion and she, in the flesh, sees her dead-self dancing with The Man who is apparently her boyfriend in the afterlife (note that The Man never does anything to demonstrate that he is "in the flesh" or has any material substance. He's more like a ghost who just appears and disappears at will).
While I'm not entirely clear on the metaphysics behind the story (was Mary REALLY there - in the flesh?), the notion that there's something not quite right with Mary follows through the entire film. And once Mary realizes she's dead, her soul is now able to spend eternity with the other souls at the abandoned resort in Utah.
While I'm not entirely clear on the metaphysics behind the story (was Mary REALLY there - in the flesh?), the notion that there's something not quite right with Mary follows through the entire film. And once Mary realizes she's dead, her soul is now able to spend eternity with the other souls at the abandoned resort in Utah.
I'm not sure where I'd rather retire once I'm dead - the abandoned amusement park in Utah or the Overlook Hotel where The Shining took place...
Anyway, I'd like to know what you think about the story. Did Mary really crawl out of the river with a vacancy sign where her soul should have been? Or was it merely her dying delirium as the final synapses fired through her now water-logged brain? Walking dead? Dreaming dead? Uneducated and ignorant dead? Where's Beetlejuice when you need him!
Pastor Z
P.S. For the sake of this discussion, I am using the term "soul" interchangeably with "spirit" - although in some xian traditions the two words are regarded as meaning two separate things (soul from Gk psuche from which we get our word psyche and psychiatry and spirit from Gk pneuma from which we get words like pneumatic as in "air-filled").
P.P.S. B-movie expert Joe Bob Briggs in his review seems to think that the dead people hanging out at the amusement park are zombies and not ghosts. I still think at times Mary Henry is in the flesh (somewhat of a zombie) and at other times clearly a ghost. It's a weird movie, and still one of my favorites. -PZ
