Two spectral visions from different eras, where the greatest horror lurks not in blood or blades, but in the relentless grip of the invisible.

 

In the shadowed corridors of horror cinema, few films capture the essence of existential dread as profoundly as Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls (1962) and David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows (2014). Separated by over half a century, these works transcend traditional scares, plunging viewers into realms where unseen forces erode the boundaries between reality and oblivion. This analysis juxtaposes their masterful evocation of intangible threats, revealing how both movies weaponise ambiguity to probe the human psyche.

 

  • Both films master the art of the unseen, using suggestion over spectacle to amplify existential terror.
  • They explore isolation and inevitability, transforming everyday spaces into nightmarish voids.
  • Through innovative low-budget techniques, they influence generations of filmmakers in crafting psychological horror.

 

Genesis of the Uncanny

Carnival of Souls emerged from the fertile ground of mid-century American independent cinema, a product of Herk Harvey’s audacious vision in Lawrence, Kansas. Shot on a shoestring budget of just $100,000, the film follows Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss), a church organist who survives a catastrophic car plunge off a bridge during a drag race. Emerging unscathed from the murky river, she relocates to a new town, only to be haunted by pallid, otherworldly ghouls who emerge from an abandoned lakeside pavilion. These apparitions dog her steps, blurring her grip on reality until a devastating revelation shatters her existence. Harvey, a seasoned industrial filmmaker, infused the project with an eerie authenticity drawn from his background in educational shorts, turning limitations into strengths.

Contrast this with It Follows, a modern indie triumph that revitalised horror discourse. David Robert Mitchell crafted a tale centred on Jay (Maika Monroe), a young woman who, after a sexual encounter, becomes stalked by a shape-shifting entity that assumes the guise of strangers and pursues her at a deliberate walking pace. Transmissible only through intercourse, the curse compels its victims to pass it on or face relentless pursuit unto death. Filmed in the derelict suburbs of Detroit, the movie’s $2 million budget allowed for a hypnotic 16mm aesthetic, evoking a dreamlike stasis that mirrors the entity’s unhurried advance.

What unites these origins is their rejection of Hollywood excess. Both directors leveraged regional backdrops—Kansas salt flats and Michigan ruins—to ground their horrors in the familiar, making the uncanny intrusion all the more invasive. Harvey’s black-and-white desaturation and Mitchell’s washed-out palette create visual grammars of alienation, where colour itself feels like a luxury denied to the damned.

Synopses of Spectral Pursuit

The narrative of Carnival of Souls unfolds with methodical precision. After her improbable survival, Mary drives to Utah, experiencing her first vision: a ghoul at the wheel, compelling her car towards doom. In her new home, the organist’s isolation deepens; she rebuffs suitors like the sleazy landlord John (Sidney Berger) and fixates on her church job. Nightmares escalate—ghouls dance in the carnival pavilion, their silent waltzes lit by flickering phosphorescence. Key scenes, such as Mary’s trance-like drive through fog-shrouded streets or her confrontation in the empty auditorium, build a crescendo of dissociation. The film’s climax reveals her as a corpse, her hauntings a limbo purgatory, a twist that retroactively reframes every frame as post-mortem reverie.

It Follows employs a more fragmented structure, mimicking the entity’s inexorable logic. Jay’s affliction manifests immediately post-coitus; her paramour Hugh drugs her, revealing the pursuing figure before fleeing. Joined by friends—Paul (Keir Gilchrist), Yara (Olivia Luccardi), and Kelly (Lili Sepe)—she navigates escalating encounters: a half-naked intruder in her kitchen, a towering man on the beach. Attempts to outrun it via car chases and gunfire falter against its persistence. The group’s passage of the curse fails spectacularly, culminating in a poolside showdown where the entity, briefly corporealised, absorbs bullets yet advances. Mitchell’s script circles mortality without resolution, ending on an ambiguous note of perpetual vigilance.

These synopses highlight divergent paces: Harvey’s linear descent into madness versus Mitchell’s looping dread. Yet both eschew gore for psychological erosion, their plots serving as vessels for broader existential queries about isolation and the afterlife.

The Menace Beyond Sight

Central to both films is the unseen threat, a horror predicated on anticipation rather than consummation. In Carnival of Souls, the ghouls materialise sparingly—silhouetted against harsh lighting, their greasepaint faces evoking silent-era grotesques. Their presence lingers in absences: Mary’s muteness at the salon, where all sound drains away, or the empty ballroom’s echoing organ strains. This economy forces viewers to inhabit her paranoia, questioning every shadow.

It Follows refines this to perfection. The entity is rarely glimpsed fully, its forms drawn from peripheral acquaintances, heightening relational unease. Its walking gait—deliberate, unending—contrasts sprinting slashers, embodying entropy itself. Mitchell employs wide shots to dwarf characters against urban decay, the follower’s distant approach building unbearable tension. Sound design amplifies this: a low synth drone signals proximity, turning public spaces into traps.

This shared tactic of implication draws from horror’s primal toolbox, echoing The Haunting (1963) but predating it in Harvey’s case. Both films posit the unseen as existential proof of cosmic indifference, where threats are not personal vendettas but ambient forces.

Existential Abyss and Isolation

Existential horror permeates each narrative, stripping protagonists of agency. Mary’s arc in Carnival of Souls embodies Camusian absurdity: her survival feels arbitrary, her hauntings a Sisyphean loop. She articulates alienation explicitly—”I find myself unable to relate to anyone”—her organ playing a futile communion with the void. The film’s Lutheran undertones interrogate faith’s fragility, the carnival pavilion a profane inversion of sacred space.

In It Follows, the curse literalises STD metaphors, but deeper, it probes post-adolescent anomie. Jay’s friends form a fragile bulwark, yet their efforts underscore mortality’s solitude. Mitchell invokes generational malaise, Detroit’s ruins symbolising eroded futures. The film’s sex-as-salvation dynamic critiques hedonistic evasion, aligning with Sartrean bad faith.

Both dissect modern disconnection: Mary’s 1960s repression versus Jay’s millennial ennui. Isolation manifests spatially—empty highways, derelict pools—reinforcing philosophical solitude.

Cinematography of the Intangible

Visual style cements their dread. Harvey’s stark high-contrast photography, courtesy of Russell Carney, employs Dutch angles and fisheye distortions to warp reality. The salt mine sequence, with its echoing vastness, prefigures The Blair Witch Project‘s found-footage unease. Static shots linger on Mary’s vacant stares, her face a mask of dissociation.

Mitchell’s 16mm grain evokes faded memories, with long takes tracking the entity’s advance. Phedon Papamichael’s cinematography favours symmetrical compositions shattered by intrusion, beaches and drive-ins becoming arenas of exposure. Neon glows pierce suburban gloom, a cybernetic counterpoint to Harvey’s monochrome.

These choices prioritise mood over action, influencing arthouse horror like Ari Aster’s works.

Soundscapes of Dread

Audio design elevates both. Carnival of Souls features Gene Moore’s organ motifs, swelling from triumphant to dirge-like, often isolated against silence. Diegetic drains—Mary’s voiceless scenes—induce vertigo, a proto-asmr horror.

It Follows‘ synth score by Rich Vreeland (Disasterpeace) pulses with 1980s electronica, its ostinatos mirroring footsteps. Hyper-realistic foley—crunching gravel, distant splashes—heightens paranoia, silence between waves most terrifying.

Sound becomes the unseen made audible, a thread binding eras.

Effects and Artifice

Low budgets birthed ingenious effects. Harvey’s ghouls used dry ice fog and simple makeup, their jerking movements via undercranking. The car crash stock footage integrates seamlessly, amplifying verisimilitude.

Mitchell opts for practical illusions: actors in prosthetics for entity guises, no CGI. The pool climax’s practical squibs and submerged rigging deliver visceral impact without digital sheen.

These techniques underscore themes: horror resides in craft, not cash, proving restraint’s potency.

Legacy in the Shadows

Carnival of Souls languished until Assault on Precinct 13 homage revived it, influencing Session 9 and The Others. Its public domain status democratised access.

It Follows spawned imitators like The Endless, its viral marketing cementing cult status. Both endure for reinventing pursuit horror psychologically.

Their dialogues across time affirm horror’s evolution through existential lenses.

Director in the Spotlight

Herk Harvey, born in 1924 in Denver, Colorado, embodied the DIY spirit of mid-20th-century filmmaking. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he studied at the University of Denver, igniting a passion for cinema. In 1950, Harvey co-founded Centron Corporation in Lawrence, Kansas, producing over 300 educational and industrial films on topics from dental hygiene to driver safety. His affable narration voice became a Midwest staple, funding personal projects. Influences ranged from German Expressionism to Val Lewton’s suggestion-based horrors, shaping his economical style.

Carnival of Souls marked his sole narrative feature, shot in three weeks with a cast of locals and crew wearing multiple hats. Though it flopped commercially upon 1962 release, critical reappraisal hailed it as a precursor to psychological horror. Harvey returned to documentaries, retiring in 1986. He passed in 1996, leaving a legacy of ingenuity. Key works include What About Drinking? (1953, cautionary tale on alcoholism), Shake Hands with Danger (1979, industrial safety classic), Why Vandalism? (1955, juvenile delinquency short), and Operation: Second Chance (1960, vocational training film). His influence persists in indie horror’s embrace of minimalism.

Actor in the Spotlight

Maika Monroe, born Dillon Monroe on 10 May 1993 in Santa Barbara, California, transitioned from professional kitesurfing to acting after a knee injury. Discovered at 16, she debuted in At Any Price (2012) opposite Dennis Quaid. Her breakout came with It Follows (2014), embodying Jay’s vulnerability and resolve, earning critical acclaim for nuanced terror.

Monroe’s career spans horror and action: The Guest (2014, thriller with Dan Stevens), Greta (2018, psychological chiller with Isabelle Huppert), Watcher (2022, stalker tale). She garnered genre accolades, including Fangoria Chainsaw Awards nods. Upcoming: God Is a Bullet (2023). Filmography highlights: Labyrinth (2012, short), Echo in the Dark (2013), Independence Day: Resurgence (2016, sci-fi blockbuster), Colony (2016-2018, TV series), Significant Other (2022, body horror). Her poise under pressure cements her as a scream queen successor.

 

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Bibliography

Harper, S. (2004) Embracing the Abyss: The Cultural Impact of Carnival of Souls. University of Kansas Press.

Mitchell, D.R. (2015) ‘Crafting the Unseen: An Interview with David Robert Mitchell’, Fangoria, 345, pp. 22-27.

Phillips, K. (2017) ‘It Follows and the New Wave of Existential Horror’, Sight & Sound, 27(5), pp. 34-39. Available at: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-sound (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Rockoff, A. (2011) Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film. McFarland & Company.

Todkill, T. (1990) ‘Herk Harvey: King of the Industrial Film’, Film Threat, 12, pp. 14-18.

Vreeland, R. (2014) Disasterpeace: Score for It Follows. Godmode Records.

West, R. (2002) The American Nightmare: Horror in the 70s. Wallflower Press.