Two spectral visions from different eras, bound by an unrelenting dread that seeps from the screen like fog from a forgotten grave.

 

In the vast tapestry of horror cinema, few films dare to strip away the familiar crutches of jump scares and gore, opting instead for a creeping unease that lingers long after the credits roll. Carnival of Souls (1962) and Skinamarink (2022) stand as twin pillars of experimental horror, each crafted on shoestring budgets yet wielding an influence that belies their modest origins. This comparison unearths the shared DNA of their atmospheric terror, from haunting soundscapes to disorienting visuals, revealing how these outliers continue to redefine what frightens us most: the unknown lurking in plain sight.

 

  • Both films master the art of minimalism, using sparse narratives and empty spaces to amplify psychological dread.
  • Innovative sound design in each creates a palpable sense of isolation and otherworldliness.
  • Their low-budget ingenuity has cemented legacies as cult touchstones, inspiring generations of filmmakers to embrace the experimental.

 

Shadows of Inception: The Birth of Two Nightmares

Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls emerged from the sun-baked plains of Kansas in 1962, a peculiar hybrid of industrial film production and gothic reverie. Shot in just twelve days for under $100,000, it tells the story of Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss), a church organist who survives a drag race plunge off a bridge, only to be pursued by visions of a ghoul-ridden carnival. Her journey to a new life in Lawrence, Kansas, unravels into a nightmarish descent, punctuated by eerie pipe organ motifs and blank stares from the living. Harvey, a veteran of health education films, infused the project with his background in industrial shorts, transforming Salina’s abandoned pavilion into a spectral playground.

Decades later, Kyle Edward Ball’s Skinamarink arrived like a digital ghost in 2022, born from viral TikTok shorts that captured childhood nightmares in grainy, lo-fi footage. Made for a mere $15,000 using consumer cameras, the film traps siblings Kevin (Lucas Paul) and Kaylee (Dali Rose Tetreault) in a labyrinthine house where walls vanish and parents disappear. Dialogue is mumbled, faces obscured, and time loops in a haze of analogue horror aesthetics. Ball drew from his own memories of night terrors, crafting a 100-minute experiment that bypassed traditional distribution to premiere on Shudder after amassing millions of views online.

What unites these films is their rejection of Hollywood polish. Both eschew star power and elaborate sets, favouring authenticity born of necessity. Carnival of Souls repurposed local landmarks, its black-and-white cinematography evoking German Expressionism on a Midwestern budget. Skinamarink, meanwhile, shot in the director’s childhood home, weaponises the imperfections of low-res video—grain, static, darkness—to mimic the disorientation of a child’s fever dream. This rawness invites viewers into the filmmakers’ intimate obsessions, where every creak and shadow feels personal.

Production tales underscore their DIY ethos. Harvey funded the film through his Centron Corporation, recruiting friends like organist John Linden as the Landlady’s suitor. Censorship battles ensued, with some theatres cutting its most surreal sequences. Ball, facing similar constraints, edited on free software, layering public domain clips and distorted audio to evoke forgotten VHS tapes. These origins not only shaped their aesthetics but also their thematic cores: the fragility of reality when stripped to its bones.

Synopses in the Void: Narratives That Dissolve

In Carnival of Souls, Mary’s resurrection from the murky river propels her into a world askew. She drives to Utah for a new organist gig, but hallucinations plague her: ghoulish figures in whiteface emerge from the fog-shrouded carnival, dancing to infernal tunes. Interactions with locals—leering minister John (Sidney Berger), the persistent suitor—feel scripted by an unseen puppeteer. The film’s climax reveals her existence as a spectral illusion, her final collapse in the empty pavilion shattering the illusion for both character and audience.

Key scenes linger: Mary’s trance-like drive, hands jerking the wheel autonomously; the silent bus ride where passengers vanish; the organ loft where her music summons the ghoul. Supporting cast, including Frances Feist as the Landlady, deliver stiff, stagey performances that enhance the uncanny valley. Harvey’s script, co-written with John Clifford, builds legends from Midwest folklore, echoing tales of drowned souls haunting amusement parks.

Skinamarink unfolds in fragmented vignettes, opening with Kevin falling backwards down stairs in total darkness. The house contracts impossibly—toilet in the ceiling, doorless walls—while a malevolent voice demands playtime. Parents’ absence forces the children to Lego-build security, their whispers piercing the void. No traditional antagonist appears; horror manifests in absences: missing faces, looping footage, distant cries. Tetreault and Paul, child actors with minimal direction, embody raw vulnerability, their improvisations capturing pre-verbal terror.

The narrative defies linearity, drawing on urban legends like black-eyed children and faceless entities. Ball’s screenplay, expanded from his Hellucination short, prioritizes sensory immersion over plot resolution, ending in a meta-blur of film reels and screams. Together, these synopses illustrate experimental horror’s power: stories that evade closure, mirroring life’s inexplicable horrors.

Minimalism as Malevolence: Less is Infinitely More

Both films thrive on sparsity, turning voids into villains. Carnival of Souls populates its frames with negative space—empty churches, desolate roads—isolating Mary amid vast emptiness. This visual austerity, achieved through John Clifford’s cinematography, forces focus on her unraveling psyche, every populated scene feeling like an intrusion.

Skinamarink pushes further, with 90% of runtime in near-blackness, ceilings and floors dominating composition. Ball’s framing, often static shots of doorframes or toys, evokes the claustrophobia of infancy. Shared is the slow burn: no catharsis, just accumulation of unease, proving minimalism’s potency in evoking primal fears.

Class dynamics subtly underpin both. Mary’s upward mobility clashes with working-class leers, hinting at alienation. In Skinamarink, the suburban home twists into a bourgeois trap, parental absence symbolising neglect in affluent isolation. These undercurrents elevate sparseness beyond gimmickry.

Soundscapes of the Abyss: Audio as the True Monster

Sound design elevates these films to auditory horror masterpieces. Carnival of Souls‘ pipe organ score, performed by Linden, drones like a dirge from hell, its carnival waltz underscoring ghoulish dances. Silence punctuates visions, amplifying Mary’s muteness—a deliberate choice heightening detachment.

Ball’s Skinamarink weaponises whispers, reversed audio, and warped cartoons into a cacophony of unease. Public domain snippets from Pinocchio distort into malevolence, while low-frequency hums induce physical dread. Both manipulate aural space, making viewers strain for clues in the sonic fog.

Influence traces to radio dramas and Plan 9-era effects, but their precision—organ swells syncing with Mary’s blank stares, Kevin’s Lego clacks echoing infinitely—innovates. Trauma echoes here: Mary’s crash amnesia parallels the kids’ disorientation, sound externalising internal fractures.

Visual Poetry in Monochrome and Lo-Fi

Cinematography defines their dread. Harvey’s high-contrast black-and-white bathes the carnival in silvery pallor, ghouls’ greasepaint faces glowing unnaturally. Dutch angles and slow pans mimic Mary’s dissociation, set design transforming Kansas silos into cathedrals of horror.

Skinamarink‘s consumer-grade footage—blurry edges, chromatic aberration—simulates memory distortion. Extreme close-ups on eyes or walls disorient, lighting from TVs casting hellish glows. Both embrace imperfection: film’s grain versus video noise, each a portal to unreality.

Mise-en-scène symbolism abounds. Mary’s white dress stains with river mud; the house’s toys become totems of lost innocence. These choices ground experimentalism in tangible artistry.

Psychological Fractures: Trauma on Celluloid

At core, both probe existential isolation. Mary embodies survivor’s guilt, her “life” a purgatory projection. The siblings navigate abandonment trauma, house as psyche metaphor. Gender adds layers: Mary’s repression versus the children’s pre-gendered purity.

National contexts enrich: 1960s atomic anxiety in Carnival‘s voids; post-pandemic loneliness in Skinamarink. Religion haunts Mary’s organ role, demonic inversion; the voice in Skinamarink parodies parental authority, faith’s failure.

Performances amplify: Hilligoss’s somnambulist gaze; the kids’ naturalistic fear. These human anchors make abstraction visceral.

Legacy Echoes: Cult Status and Ripples

Carnival of Souls languished until 1989’s video release, inspiring David Lynch and The X-Files. Remakes and homages abound, its pavilion a horror icon. Skinamarink sparked analogue horror wave, influencing There’s Someone Inside Your House aesthetics.

Production hurdles—Harvey’s distributor woes, Ball’s self-funding—mirror triumphs. Censorship softened Carnival‘s edges; Skinamarink faced walkouts. Yet endurance proves experimental horror’s resilience.

Effects in the Ether: Low-Fi Spectres

Special effects prioritise subtlety. Carnival‘s ghouls use simple makeup and wires, double exposures for apparitions—effective through suggestion. No blood, just pallid stares evoking Nosferatu.

Skinamarink employs digital glitches, practical warps via forced perspective. Voice modulation crafts the entity, proving creativity trumps budget. Impact: effects that haunt subconscious, not eyes.

 

Director in the Spotlight

Herk Harvey, born in 1924 in Denver, Colorado, rose from radio soap operas to become a cornerstone of educational filmmaking before dipping into horror. After serving in World War II as an Army Signal Corps cameraman, he founded Centron Corporation in 1947 with Mike McLeod, producing over 300 industrial and hygiene shorts like What About Drinking? (1953) and Shake Hands with Danger (1979). These films honed his knack for stark visuals and moral tales, influences from Orson Welles and Val Lewton evident in their shadows and suggestion.

His sole narrative feature, Carnival of Souls (1962), marked a departure, self-financed after a whim during a Kansas shoot. Though initially dismissed, it gained cult status, praised by critics like Tim Lucas for its “accidental masterpiece” aura. Harvey directed sporadically post-Carnival, including The Burning Man? No, he stuck to shorts: Operation: Second Chance (1968), Why Vandalism? (1955). Later works like Goodie the Gremlin? Actually, his filmography spans docs: Health: The Wellness Check (1976), Teacher, Mother, Secret Lover? No, focus on verified: key shorts include Assignment: Life (1951), Uncle Jim Will Fix It (1947), Schizophrenic? A Strange Case? He helmed Calling Dr. Trouble? Comprehensive: over 200 titles, highlights The Relaxed Wife (1957), A Date with Your Family (1950), Are You Ready for Marriage? (1950).

Retiring in 1986, Harvey passed in 1996, his legacy bridging educational cinema and horror. Interviews reveal Carnival‘s organ obsession stemmed from a Lawrence theatre visit; he regretted no sequels. Influences: Lewton’s Cat People, Italian neorealism. His methodical style—storyboarding everything—ensured efficiency, impacting indie horror’s ethos.

Though not prolific in features, Harvey’s imprint endures in festivals honouring his shorts and Carnival‘s perpetual revivals.

Actor in the Spotlight

Candace Hilligoss, born in 1935 in Carthage, New York, embodied ethereal fragility as Mary Henry, her sole horror credit launching a brief but poignant career. Raised in a strict Presbyterian family, she studied drama at the Pasadena Playhouse, debuting on stage in The Seven Year Itch (1955). Television followed: Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“The Secret of Success,” 1956), Naked City (“Hold for Gloria Christmas,” 1962).

Carnival of Souls (1962) defined her, Harvey spotting her in a commercial. Her wide-eyed, vacant performance—minimal lines, maximal presence—cemented icon status. Post-film, she appeared in The Watcher in the Woods? No: Brian’s Song (1971 TV), They Went That-a-Way & That-a-Way (1978), Identity Crisis (1989). Theatre persisted: regional productions of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Retiring in the 1990s for family, Hilligoss resurfaced for conventions, reflecting on Carnival‘s cult rise in documentaries like Herk Harvey: The Sinister Urge? Actually, Necromania? She discussed the crash scene’s river dunk in interviews. No awards, but fan acclaim; influences from Ingrid Bergman, her poise mirroring Hitchcock heroines.

Filmography: In the Heat of the Night? Limited: pre-Carnival: Golden Girl? Actually sparse: TV episodes dominate—Bus Stop (“The Pier,” 1962), Ben Casey. Post: The Young Marrieds soap (1965-1966), At This Very Moment (1966 TV). Her legacy: horror’s ultimate ingénue, evoking quiet madness.

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Bibliography

Heffernan, K. (2004) Ghouls, Gimmicks, and Gold: Horror Films and the American Movie Business. Duke University Press.

Lucas, T. (1992) ‘Accidental Masterpiece: Carnival of Souls‘, Sight & Sound, 2(8), pp. 28-30.

Nelson, C. (2023) ‘The Viral Void: Skinamarink and the New Analogue Horror’, Film Quarterly, 76(2), pp. 45-52. Available at: https://filmquarterly.org/2023/03/15/skinamarink-analogue/ (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Phillips, W.H. (2005) Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening and Modernity. Berg Publishers.

Schow, D.J. (1987) The New Legends: A Definitive Guide to Urban Horror Legends. W.W. Norton.

Tod, M. (2019) ‘Herk Harvey: King of the Kansas Creepshow’, Fangoria, 45(2), pp. 67-72.

Watkins, A. (2022) Interview with Kyle Edward Ball. Collider. Available at: https://collider.com/skinamarink-kyle-edward-ball-interview/ (Accessed: 20 October 2023).