Carnival of Life

There’s no better way of celebrating the holidays than watching an old-time horror movie—at least that’s what my family did this year.

I got together with my sister and auntie on Thanksgiving Day for the usual blast of turkey, stuffing, potatoes and apple pie. And wine. Oh, yeah, plenty of wine.

The food was fabulous and I ate like it was my last meal. I know people always say that on Thanksgiving, but this time I really broke the record.

Even my loose pants couldn’t handle the strain of my bulging waistline.

It was bitter cold in my part of the world on Thursday, so I was extremely thankful to be indoors spending time with the people I love. And the wine. Really thankful for the wine.

After dinner we waddled over to the living room to watch some tube and relax.

This is the start of the Christmas insanity and there are plenty of holiday movies and specials to watch, but it just so happened that my sister had recorded Carnival of Souls, a horror movie cult classic that never failed to scare the screaming hell out of us when we were kids.

It was the perfect antidote to all those obnoxious Black Friday commercials that poured out of the TV, urging us to buy stuff until we keel over.

Made in 1962 on a shoestring budget, Carnival of Souls tells the story of Mary Henry, a young woman who mysteriously survives when the car she and her two friends are riding in sails off a bridge and plunges into a river.

Mary, who has no memory of what happened, moves away from her hometown to play the organ at a Salt Lake City church. However, she is being haunted by a ghoul in a black suit whom no one else can see, and her life soon goes straight to hell—literally.

Birds Gotta Fly

Director Herk Harvey—who played the aforementioned ghoul—worked at Centron Studios, an industrial film company in Lawrence, Kansas, and he got the idea for the movie after driving by the crumbling Saltair Amusement Park. The park plays a major and very spooky role in the movie.

The film was made on the cheap, but Harvey and screenwriter John Clifford accomplished so much.

They put together a pretty scary flick without blowing through millions of dollars and cramming the thing with half-assed special effects and computer generated quackery. They actually had to rely on skill and imagination. Aspiring filmmakers could learn a whole hell of a lot from this movie.

I have no idea how many times I’ve seen this movie, but if I had a dollar for every viewing I suspect I could buy my own amusement park.

In one of the film’s creepier scenes, Mary finds that people cannot see or hear her, even when she’s right up in their faces and she can’t hear any sounds at all.

It’s a very disturbing depiction of isolation and perhaps an unwitting commentary on the loneliness that continues to plague our society.

Only now the problem has been exacerbated by the cellphones and the I-pods that we’ve grafted onto our hearts and minds.

Mary is about to crack when she is able to hear a bird chirping. And, it’s strange, but the scene got me thinking about how short and precious life is; how something as mundane as the sound of a bird chirping suddenly becomes valuable beyond measure when it’s taken away.

The film continues to a grisly climax, which I will not spoil for those who haven’t seen it.

I know that it sounds strange to get a life lesson from a nearly 60-year-old zero budge horror movie, but it’s the lesson that matters, not the source.

I’m really grateful that I picked up on that message because I want to hear those birds chirping for as long as I possibly can.

And wine, oh, yeah, I’m really thankful for wine.