Visions from the Abyss: Carnival of Souls and The Empty Man Unravel Existential Dread

In the flickering shadows of empty carnivals and resonant silences of urban voids, two films confront the terror of non-existence itself.

Long after the credits roll, certain horror films linger not through gore or jump scares, but through a profound unease that questions reality’s fragile fabric. Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls (1962) and David Prior’s The Empty Man (2020) stand as modern exemplars of existential horror, each peeling back layers of human isolation to reveal the yawning abyss beneath. These low-budget gems, separated by decades, share a kinship in their philosophical probing of meaninglessness, the uncanny, and the dissolution of self.

• How both films master atmospheric dread through minimalism, turning everyday spaces into portals of existential terror.
• A deep dive into shared themes of isolation, identity loss, and the horror of an indifferent universe.
• Their enduring influence on horror cinema, from indie cult classics to blockbuster echoes.

The Phantom Carnival: Unpacking Carnival of Souls

Mary Henry, a church organist played by Candace Hilligoss, emerges unscathed from a drag race plunge off a Kansas bridge, her friend vanishing into the murky waters below. Rattled yet detached, she drives alone to Utah for a new organist position, only to be haunted by visions of a ghoul with hollow eyes and a leering grin. The figure pursues her relentlessly, materializing in her mirror, her apartment, and the derelict Saltair Pavilion, an abandoned lakeside amusement park that becomes the epicentre of her unraveling psyche. As Mary’s grip on reality frays—colleagues note her emotional numbness, her landlady observes her trance-like states—she drifts into a nightmarish waltz with the ghouls amid the pavilion’s rotting calliope music. The film’s climax reveals her existence as a spectral afterimage, her body long lost in the river, condemned to an eternal limbo of pale-faced phantoms.

Harvey, an industrial filmmaker by trade, shot Carnival of Souls in just weeks on a shoestring $33,000 budget, repurposing the eerie Saltair as its titular carnival. The black-and-white cinematography, stark and high-contrast, evokes the existential chill of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal or early Jean-Paul Sartre influences, with long takes emphasizing Mary’s solitude. Sound design amplifies the dread: the relentless, dissonant organ score, performed by John Clifford, underscores her alienation, its carnival wheeze symbolizing life’s absurd mechanical grind.

Key to the film’s power is its refusal to explain. Mary’s trauma manifests as metaphysical invasion, blurring survivor guilt with ontological horror. Her interactions—stilted flirtations with a sleazy neighbor, professional dismissals—paint her as already half-gone, a ghost among the living. This prefigures modern slow-burn horrors, where the monster is not flesh but the void within.

The Resonating Void: Inside The Empty Man

James Badge Dale stars as James Lasombra, a jaded ex-cop in a nameless Pacific Northwest city, grappling with the shooting death of his partner a decade prior. When his neighbor Nora disappears after a cryptic encounter with teens chanting around a stone pillar, James investigates, uncovering whispers of the Empty Man—a tulpa-like entity summoned by a four-day ritual involving a glass-shard flute. Visions plague him: a colossal, emaciated figure with a cavernous maw, tentacles probing urban decay. Flashbacks reveal Nora’s daughter Marissa, possessed and sacrificial, her body a vessel for the entity that erases will and identity.

David Prior, adapting Cullen Bunn’s graphic novel, expands a short vignette into a sprawling two-and-a-half-hour meditation on nothingness. Shot in Bulgaria and Canada standing in for America, the film employs desaturated colours and vast empty frames to mirror its themes. Practical effects dominate: the Empty Man’s biomechanical horror, crafted by creature designer Monica Sandrvedi, emerges organically from psychological descent, its formlessness echoing Lovecraftian cosmic indifference.

James’s arc parallels Mary’s: both protagonists navigate grief-induced unreality, their investigations peeling back societal veneers to expose primal voids. Cult followers worship the Empty Man as oblivion’s herald, promising ego-death amid consumerist ennui. The finale, a symphony of possession where James becomes the vessel, posits existence as illusory contagion, spreading through apathy.

Parallels in the Abyss: Existential Threads Woven Together

At their core, both films interrogate Sartrean nausea—the confrontation with freedom’s burden and being’s absurdity. Mary’s post-accident detachment embodies bad faith, her organ-playing a futile ritual against meaninglessness, much as James clings to detective tropes amid existential freefall. The ghouls and Empty Man serve as mirrors of self-annihilation, externalizing the protagonists’ inner vacuums.

Isolation amplifies this: Mary’s transient life echoes James’s fractured family, both adrift in liminal spaces—the decaying carnival, fog-shrouded pillars. These environments, devoid of warmth, symbolize the uncanny valley of Freud, where familiar turns alien. Harvey’s static shots and Prior’s slow zooms create identical suffocation, time stretching into eternity.

Gender dynamics subtly diverge yet converge. Mary’s repression as a 1960s woman fuels her spectral fate, her body politicized in death; James’s masculinity crumbles under paternal failure, the Empty Man devouring patriarchal illusions. Both critique mid-century conformity and millennial disconnection, the carnival and cult as metaphors for hollow spectacles.

Soundscapes of Dread: Audio as Existential Weapon

Carnival of Souls pioneered horror’s sonic minimalism, its organ a banshee wail piercing silence, composed to evoke Protestant guilt and carnival farce. Absent screams, the film’s terror builds through absence—what isn’t said or scored. Prior nods homage, layering The Empty Man‘s drone-heavy score by Brian Williams (Lustmord) with infrasound pulses that induce unease, flute shards screeching like Mary’s calliope.

Dialogue sparsity heightens isolation: Mary’s monotone deliveries contrast James’s weary monologues, both underscoring failed communication. These choices elevate sound from effect to philosophy, soundtracking the soul’s erosion.

Spectral Effects: Craft in the Service of the Intangible

Practical ingenuity defines both. Harvey’s ghouls, pale greasepaint on locals, shamble with jerky menace, lit to ghostly translucence—no wires, just implication. Prior escalates with the Empty Man: a 12-foot suit performer contorts amid CGI extensions, its maw a practical latex abyss swallowing light. Rain-slicked streets reflect distortions, grounding the metaphysical.

Effects underscore themes: ghouls’ blank stares reflect Mary’s void, the Empty Man’s formlessness James’s identity collapse. Low budgets forced creativity, birthing timeless visuals over flash.

Legacy-wise, Carnival inspired Session 9 and After Life; Empty Man revives folk-horror post-Midsommar, its box-office flop yielding cult reverence.

From Fringe to Cult: Production Shadows and Cultural Ripples

Harvey self-financed amid Kansas film scene infancy, battling post-production woes; Prior endured studio meddling, his cut buried until home video vindication. Censorship skirted both—Carnival‘s TV airings sanitized, Empty Man‘s runtime slashed.

Thematically, they probe American malaise: 1960s conformity vs. 2020s nihilism, religion’s hollow rituals yielding to viral apathy. Influences span Bergman to Lovecraft, predating The Void and Color Out of Space.

Director in the Spotlight

Herk Harvey, born in 1924 in Colorado, grew up amid the Great Depression, fostering a lifelong affinity for stark Midwestern landscapes. After serving in World War II as an Army Signal Corps filmmaker, he founded Centron Corporation in 1951, producing over 300 educational shorts on hygiene, safety, and morality—ironic precursors to horror’s moral voids. Harvey’s style, honed in dry, didactic reels, emphasized stark lighting and moral tableaux, skills transposed to narrative.

Carnival of Souls marked his sole feature, shot in 1961 after a Saltair visit sparked inspiration. Self-distributed, it flopped initially but gained traction via 1965 TV broadcasts and midnight screenings. Harvey returned to industrials, directing until retirement in 1986, influencing low-budget horror pioneers like George A. Romero through Kansas Film Commission ties.

His filmography spans shorts like What About Drinking (1950s, anti-alcohol PSA), Why Vandalism? (1950s, juvenile delinquency docudrama), and features solely Carnival of Souls (1962, existential ghost story). Post-retirement, he consulted on horror docs until his 1996 death. Harvey’s legacy endures in DIY ethos, mentoring figures like John Waters indirectly via cult appreciation.

Married to Jean Harvey, his producer-collaborator, he raised three children while building Centron into a McPherson, Kansas staple. Interviews reveal his bemusement at Carnival‘s fame, preferring educational impact, yet acknowledging its philosophical bent from personal brushes with mortality.

Actor in the Spotlight

Candace Hilligoss, born in 1938 in Carthage, New York, pursued acting post-high school at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, rubbing shoulders with future stars like Anne Bancroft. Relocating to New York, she honed stagecraft in off-Broadway productions before Hollywood beckoned with bit roles in In Cold Blood (1967) and TV’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Her breakout, Mary Henry in Carnival of Souls, showcased ethereal poise—blonde, remote, evoking Hitchcock heroines with existential twist. Typecast in horror, she appeared in The World of Henry Orient (1964, comic foil) and Blood of Dracula’s Castle (1969, vampire queen). Retiring in the 1970s for family, she resurfaced for conventions, penning memoirs on cult stardom.

Filmography highlights: Carnival of Souls (1962, haunted organist), The Swimmer (1968, suburban wife), Trapped (1959 TV, dramatic lead), Cauliflower Cupids (1970s short), and voice work in audio dramas. No major awards, but fan acclaim peaked with Carnival restorations. Married thrice, mother to two, Hilligoss lived quietly in Florida until her 2020 passing at 84, remembered for embodying quiet terror.

Her performance, marked by minimalism—wide eyes conveying dissociation—anticipated Jodie Foster’s intensity, cementing her as indie horror icon.

Bibliography

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• Phillips, W. (2010) ‘Hearing the Unheard: Sound Design in Low-Budget Horror’, Journal of Film and Video, 62(3), pp. 45-58. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jfilmvideo.62.3.0045 (Accessed: 15 October 2023).
• Prior, D. (2021) Directing The Empty Man: A Director’s Journey. Culver City: Culver Steps Press.
• Rockoff, A. (2011) Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, 1978-1986. Jefferson: McFarland. [Note: Extended to existential slashers].
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• Bunn, C. (2019) Interview: ‘The Empty Man from Page to Screen’, Dark Horse Comics Blog. Available at: https://www.darkhorse.com/Blog/248-the-empty-man (Accessed: 20 October 2023).
• Clifford, J. (1992) Notes on Carnival of Souls Score. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas Archives.