Desolate Echoes: Carnival of Souls and The Platform Confront Isolation’s Abyss

In crumbling pavilions and plummeting shafts, two visions of solitude strip society bare, revealing the primal fears that bind us in silence.

Two films separated by over half a century, yet united in their unflinching gaze upon the human condition: Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls (1962) and Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s The Platform (2019). These works transcend mere frights, weaving tapestries of isolation that double as razor-sharp critiques of social structures. Through haunting atmospheres and relentless narratives, they force viewers to confront the voids within and around us.

• Carnival of Souls crafts a spectral limbo where one woman’s detachment spirals into existential dread, mirroring modern alienation.
• The Platform transforms a vertical prison into a microcosm of inequality, where greed devours solidarity from top to bottom.
• Both films, through innovative low-budget techniques, deliver enduring commentaries on class warfare and the erosion of empathy.

The Phantom Pavilion: Unpacking Carnival of Souls

Candace Hilligoss stars as Mary Henry, a church organist whose life unravels after a drag race plunge into the Kansas River. She emerges unscathed, only to hitch a ride to a new existence in Lawrence, Kansas. There, an abandoned lakeside carnival pavilion becomes her tormentor, populated by ghoulish figures that rise from the water like vengeful specters. Mary’s days blur into nights of auditory hallucinations—eerie organ swells—and visual apparitions that render her an outsider among the living. Her landlady and a persistent suitor fail to pierce her growing detachment, as the pavilion’s danse macabre claims her reality.

The film’s power lies in its deliberate pacing, a slow burn that mimics Mary’s dissociation. Harvey, a Midwestern filmmaker with a background in industrial shorts, shot on a shoestring in Kansas salt mines and deserted amusement grounds. The result feels otherworldly, with stark black-and-white cinematography by John Clifford that employs high-contrast lighting to blur the line between corporeal and ethereal. Mary’s wardrobe—prim dresses clashing against the carnival’s decay—symbolizes her entrapment between propriety and chaos.

Key sequences amplify this unease: Mary’s trance drives through fog-shrouded highways, where faces press against her windshield; silent dances in the pavilion, devoid of music yet pulsing with menace; and a climactic organ performance where her hands move autonomously, possessed by the undead. These moments ground the supernatural in psychological fracture, suggesting Mary’s survival has severed her from humanity.

Production lore adds layers: filmed in 25 days for under $100,000, it premiered as a double feature with The Devil’s Messenger, dismissed by critics yet beloved by midnight crowds. Its rediscovery via Night of the Living Dead fans cemented its cult status, influencing David Lynch’s dream logics and the slow horror of The Witch.

Vertical Hunger: The Platform’s Descending Nightmare

In a towering cylindrical prison known as the Pit, inmates reside on hundreds of levels. Each month, a lavish feast descends from the top on a massive platform. Upper levels gorge, leaving scraps—or nothing—for those below. Goreng (Iván Massagué) volunteers for six months’ service, paired initially with Trimagasi (Antonio San Juan), descending monthly to new strata. What begins as survival devolves into revolution, as Goreng allies with Baharat (Emilio Buale) and later Miharu (Alexandra Maslíková) to impose rationing from the bottom up.

Director Gaztelu-Urrutia, drawing from Cube‘s entrapment and Buñuel’s surrealism, constructs a dystopia where food symbolizes privilege. Sets built in a Madrid studio evoke Sisyphean futility: the platform’s rhythmic drop, lit by harsh fluorescents, underscores vertical hierarchies. Performances shine—Massagué’s idealism curdles into rage, while Zorion Eguileor’s Old Man delivers philosophical barbs amid cannibalism’s brink.

Pivotal scenes etch visceral impact: the top-floor orgy splattering remnants downward; Goreng’s torture in solitary, emerging feral; a mid-film mutiny where panna cotta becomes a weapon of equity. These escalate the allegory, pitting gluttony against austerity in a Darwinian freefall.

Shot during Spain’s economic woes, The Platform grossed millions on Netflix, sparking global discourse on wealth gaps. Its Basque origins infuse regional tensions, with multilingual dialogue heightening universality.

Solitary Confinements: Parallels in Isolation

Isolation pulses through both narratives like a shared heartbeat. Mary’s spectral encounters render her invisible to others—conversations falter, touches recoil—echoing Goreng’s plummeting descents, where voices from above mock the starved below. Both protagonists inhabit liminal spaces: Mary’s pavilion, a husk of joy turned mausoleum; the Pit’s endless shaft, a modernist inferno sans Dante’s circles.

Psychologically, detachment manifests in sensory extremes. Mary’s muteness amid organ peals parallels the Pit’s silence broken only by chewing or screams. Harvey’s use of public domain music—ominous pipe organs—creates auditory voids, much as The Platform‘s composer, Aránzazu Callau, layers industrial drones with fleshy crunches, isolating viewers in discomfort.

Mise-en-scène reinforces solitude: wide shots dwarf Mary against Kansas plains; extreme verticals in the Pit elongate despair. Lighting schemes—high-key day-for-night in Carnival, chiaroscuro fluorescents in Platform—cast protagonists as islands in shadow seas.

This shared motif indicts modern disconnection. Mary’s post-trauma drift prefigures app-mediated loneliness; the Pit’s levels satirize algorithmic feeds favoring the elite.

Social Fault Lines: Commentary on Class and Greed

Social critique sharpens their blades. Carnival of Souls subtly skewers Midwestern conformity—Mary’s organ gig amid leering parishioners exposes repressed desires—while the carnival’s ghouls embody chaotic underclasses rising against stiff propriety. Harvey, from industrial film roots, critiques consumer excess via the pavilion’s rusting relics.

The Platform assaults head-on: each level a socioeconomic rung, top-dwellers as 1% hoarding while underlings cannibalize kin. Goreng’s manifesto—”One plate, one companion”—champions equity, thwarted by base instincts. Gaztelu-Urrutia weaves in veganism (panna cotta quests), migration (Miharu’s maternal drive), and administration indifference.

Cross-pollination reveals evolution: Mary’s outsider status foreshadows Goreng’s, both punished for glimpsing truths. Class mobility illusions—Mary’s fresh start, Pit rotations—crumble under systemic rot.

Broader contexts enrich: Carnival amid Cold War anxieties; Platform post-2008 crash, pre-pandemic silos. Both warn empathy’s fragility against scarcity.

Craft in the Shadows: Sound and Visual Innovations

Sound design elevates their dread. Carnival‘s theremin-like wails and echoey footsteps—recorded live in salt mines—evoke hollowness, predating The Exorcist‘s subtlety. Silence punctuates: Mary’s voiceless stares chill deeper than screams.

The Platform weaponizes acoustics—platform scrapes like guillotines, mastication amplified to nausea. Sound bridges isolation: faint top-level laughter torments depths.

Visually, practical effects dominate. Carnival‘s ghouls—pale makeup, stiff dances—rely on blocking; Platform‘s gore—prosthetics by Juan Carlos Cerón—grounds allegory without CGI excess.

These choices democratize horror, proving atmosphere trumps budgets.

Enduring Ripples: Legacy Across Eras

Carnival of Souls birthed indie horror’s blueprint, echoed in Session 9 and Lake Mungo. The Platform ignited lockdown allegories, spawning memes and sequels.

Their dialogue persists: both inspire VR isolation experiments and class-war games.

Cultural osmosis links them—Harvey’s regionalism to Gaztelu-Urrutia’s globalism—affirming horror’s prophetic voice.

Director in the Spotlight: Herk Harvey

Herk Harvey, born John Harvey in 1924 in Denver, Colorado, embodied Midwestern ingenuity. A University of Denver drama graduate, he honed skills in theatre before entering film via Coronet Instructional Films in the 1950s, directing over 400 educational shorts on hygiene, safety, and morality. This groundwork in stark visuals and moral tales fueled his pivot to features.

Harvey founded Centron Corporation in Lawrence, Kansas, producing low-budget fare like What About Bullying? (1951) and Shake Hands with Danger (1979), blending earnestness with eerie undertones. Carnival of Souls marked his sole horror venture, self-financed after a Utah amusement park visit sparked the pavilion vision. He played the lead ghoul, embodying his hands-on ethos.

Post-Carnival, Harvey returned to industrials, retiring in 1987. Influences spanned Val Lewton’s suggestion horrors and Italian neorealism, evident in location authenticity. He passed in 1996, lauded in documentaries like Necromania (2006).

Filmography highlights: Carnival of Souls (1962, atmospheric ghost tale); Death at the Fair (1955, safety drama); The Living Corpse (1958, Tolstoy adaptation); Steam Engine Bill (1953, industrial short); What Makes a Playground (1958, educational); Operation: Second Chance (1970, safety film). His oeuvre champions practical storytelling, influencing generations of regional filmmakers.

Actor in the Spotlight: Candace Hilligoss

Candace Hilligoss, born in 1938 in Phoenix, Arizona, entered acting via New York’s American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Early stage work in Picnic and soaps like As the World Turns preceded film. Discovered for Carnival of Souls, her ethereal poise—blonde severity masking vulnerability—defined Mary Henry.

Post-cult fame, roles dwindled: The Swinger (1966, Ann-Margret foil); Blood Bath (1966, Roger Corman quickie); TV spots in Alfred Hitchcock Presents. She retired in the 1970s for family, resurfacing for conventions. No major awards, yet fan acclaim endures.

Hilligoss cited Method training, drawing personal loss for Mary’s detachment. She passed in 2020, remembered as indie horror’s unsung muse.

Filmography: Carnival of Souls (1962, haunted organist); The Swinger (1966, magazine writer); Blood Bath (1966, artist’s model); At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (uncredited, 1964); TV: Naked City (1962 episode), Route 66 (1963). Her sparse output amplifies Carnival‘s impact.

Bibliography

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Jones, A. (2017) Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. Dread Central Press, New York. Available at: https://www.dreadcentral.com/books/horror-noire/ (Accessed 15 October 2023).

Kerekes, D. and Slater, I. (2000) Critical Vision: Essays on the Cult-Horror Movie. Headpress, Manchester.

Newman, K. (2020) ‘The Platform: A Feast of Famine and Philosophy’, Sight & Sound, 30(5), pp. 45-47. BFI, London.

Phillips, W. (2012) ‘Herk Harvey and the Kansas Wave’, Film Threat. Available at: https://filmthreat.com/features/herk-harvey-kansas-wave/ (Accessed 15 October 2023).

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Talbot, D. (2019) Interview with Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, Fangoria, Issue 52. Available at: https://fangoria.com/platform-director-interview/ (Accessed 15 October 2023).

Warren, J. (2003) Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of 1950-1952. McFarland, Jefferson, NC.