Visions from the Abyss: Carnival of Souls and The Night House Wrestle with Existential Void

In the flickering shadows between reality and oblivion, two films summon the ultimate dread: the emptiness that stares back.

Two quiet masterpieces of horror, separated by decades yet united in their unflinching gaze into the human soul’s darkest recesses, Carnival of Souls (1962) and The Night House (2020) redefine existential terror. Herk Harvey’s low-budget apparition and David Bruckner’s grief-soaked supernatural puzzle both probe the fragile boundary between life, death, and the incomprehensible beyond, leaving audiences adrift in a sea of doubt and isolation.

  • Both films weaponise architectural spaces and auditory hallucinations to erode the protagonist’s grip on sanity, transforming the familiar into the profane.
  • Through stark visuals and minimalist narratives, they explore grief as a gateway to cosmic indifference, echoing philosophers from Kierkegaard to Camus.
  • Their legacies endure, influencing generations of filmmakers who chase that same elusive chill of existential irrelevance.

The Phantom Carnival Beckons

Carnival of Souls emerges from the sunbaked flatlands of Kansas, a $27,000 fever dream shot in just weeks by Herk Harvey and his industrial filmmaking crew. Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss), a church organist, survives a drag race plunge off a bridge when her car vanishes into the river. Emerging unscathed yet profoundly altered, she drives alone to a new life in Lawrence, Kansas, only to be pursued by ghastly pallid figures emerging from an derelict lakeside pavilion. The film unfolds in a series of disorienting vignettes: Mary’s vacant stares in mirrors, her muteness amid leering townsfolk, and nocturnal processions of the undead shuffling through fog-shrouded ruins. Harvey’s camera lingers on her alienation, capturing the organ’s relentless drone as it underscores her descent into unreality. Key moments crystallise this horror: Mary’s hands passing through a lover’s grasp during a dance, or her silent sermon where words fail against the pipe organ’s thunderous proclamation of doom.

The narrative builds inexorably towards revelation, revealing Mary’s watery tomb and her spectral existence as a liminal ghost haunting the living. Production lore amplifies the film’s mystique; shot guerilla-style in abandoned buildings like the Saltair Pavilion near Salt Lake City, its raw edges contribute to an authenticity that polished Hollywood efforts could never match. Harvey, a veteran of health education films, infused the project with expressionist flourishes reminiscent of early German cinema, where distorted perspectives and stark lighting evoke inner turmoil. This economical terror, distributed initially as a double bill with Herschell Gordon Lewis‘s gorefests, found cult status through late-night TV airings, cementing its place as a touchstone for psychological horror.

Grief’s Architectural Labyrinth

In stark contrast, yet thematically entwined, The Night House plunges into contemporary anguish. Rebecca Hall delivers a riveting performance as Beth, a high school teacher reeling from her architect husband Owen’s (Evan Jonigkeit) suicide by drowning in their lake house. As Beth sifts through his blueprints and cryptic notes quoting Blake’s void, the house itself rebels: doors creak open to impossible geometries, phantom women mirror her form, and nocturnal whispers lure her to the water’s edge. Director David Bruckner layers the horror with precision, employing the home’s inverted floorplan—a mirror image of their previous residence—as a metaphor for fractured identity. Beth’s discoveries spiral: hidden Polaroids of doppelgangers, a pattern of murdered women echoing her features, all tied to an entity thriving in absence.

The film’s climax unveils a leviathan void, a black-hole-like maw devouring light and logic, symbolising Owen’s pact with nothingness. Bruckner’s script, adapted from a tale by Henry Hite, draws on real architectural anomalies and suicide clusters for verisimilitude, shot in pristine digital clarity that heightens the uncanny. Hall’s Beth navigates grief’s stages with raw physicality—convulsive sobs, sleepwalking trances—while supporting turns from Sarah Pidgeon and Vondie Curtis-Hall ground the supernatural in emotional truth. Released amid pandemic isolation, the film resonated as a portrait of collective loss, its box office bolstered by streaming demand.

Synapses of Silence: Sound as Existential Assault

Sound design forms the spine of both films’ dread, turning auditory voids into weapons. In Carnival of Souls, Gene Moore’s calliope wails and thunderous organ chords punctuate Mary’s dissociation, often divorced from visible sources. These motifs, recycled from stock libraries, achieve transcendence through repetition; the carnival’s mocking refrain invades dreams, eroding temporal boundaries. Silence reigns elsewhere: Mary’s voiceless interactions amplify her otherworldliness, a technique Harvey borrowed from silent film’s emotive power. Critics note how this sparse palette mirrors existential nausea, where sound’s absence signifies the soul’s detachment from flesh.

The Night House refines this into a symphony of subtlety. Steve Hull’s score blends folk drones with infrasonic rumbles, while diegetic echoes—Owen’s voicemail loops, wind through vents—blur memory and menace. Beth’s tinnitus-like whispers articulate the void’s hunger, pulling viewers into her perceptual collapse. Bruckner consulted sound theorists to craft these layers, ensuring each creak propels narrative unease. Comparatively, both films shun jump scares for cumulative immersion, proving existential horror thrives in the ear’s betrayal as much as the eye’s.

Mirrors of the Self: Visual Motifs of Dissolution

Visually, reflections dominate, fracturing identity. Mary’s compulsive mirror gazes in Carnival reveal hollow eyes, culminating in her pallid visage merging with ghouls; Harvey’s black-and-white chiaroscuro, lit by harsh fluorescents, evokes funhouse distortions. The Saltair’s crumbling arches frame her isolation, architecture as mausoleum. Bruckner mirrors this in colour: Beth’s lake house, with its symmetrical voids and submerged reflections, literalises duality. Cinematographer Elise Bogdan’s slow pans over blueprints and watery abysses echo Mary’s drift, digital tools allowing seamless superimpositions of apparitions.

Both exploit negative space—empty roads, unpeopled rooms—to evoke cosmic loneliness. Mary’s nocturnal drives parallel Beth’s porch vigils, headlights/pool lights piercing fog/darkness. This shared iconography underscores existential themes: the self as illusory construct, vulnerable to the infinite regress of mirrors.

The Pull of Nothingness: Grief and the Beyond

At core, both narratives dramatise the allure of annihilation. Mary’s post-crash fugue embodies posthumous unrest, her organ playing a futile hymn against entropy. Philosophically, the film anticipates Sartre’s ‘nausea’, where existence precedes absurd essence. Beth confronts a similar abyss, Owen’s blueprints mapping suicide’s geometry, the entity embodying Heidegger’s ‘thrownness’ into dread. Grief catalyses revelation: Mary’s denial yields acceptance in watery embrace; Beth rejects the void, affirming agency amid loss.

Class and gender inflect these journeys. Mary’s spinster austerity critiques mid-century repression; Beth’s professional poise unravels modern independence. Both resist patriarchal gazes—lecherous boarders, Owen’s spectral control—reclaiming narrative from oblivion.

From Grainy Cult to Streaming Spectre: Production Realities

Production disparities highlight evolution. Harvey’s DIY ethos triumphed over adversity: non-actors, single takes, regional distribution. Censorship dodged via B-movie status. Bruckner’s $5 million venture leveraged Searchlight prestige, yet retained indie intimacy through practical effects—wire-rigged phantoms, forced perspectives for voids. COVID delays honed performances, mirroring themes. Challenges forged authenticity: Harvey’s budget miracles parallel Bruckner’s restraint against CGI excess.

Effects warrant scrutiny. Carnival‘s ghouls, dusted with flour under klieg lights, achieve eerie translucence cheaply. Night House‘s abyss blends practical miniatures with subtle VFX, evoking The Void (2016) influences. Both prioritise implication over spectacle.

Echoes in the Canon: Influence and Subgenre Shifts

Carnival birthed slow-burn horror, inspiring David Lynch’s dream logic and The Others (2001) twists. George Romero screened it obsessively; its DNA permeates Lost Highway. Night House nods to Hereditary, amplifying folk horror with architecture. Together, they anchor ‘elevated horror’, bridging Rosemary’s Baby unease with Ari Aster’s viscerality. Legacy endures in podcasts, restorations—Arrow Video’s 4K Carnival, Shudder streams—reviving discourse on quiet terror.

Subgenre-wise, they exemplify ‘existential horror’, post-Repulsion evolution from visceral to metaphysical. National contexts differ: Harvey’s heartland stoicism versus Bruckner’s secular angst, both universalising dread.

Director in the Spotlight

Herk Harvey, born in 1924 in Denver, Colorado, embodied the American everyman turned auteur. After wartime service in the Navy, he honed skills at the University of Utah, graduating in theatre arts. Industrial filmmaking beckoned; joining Centron Corporation in 1950, he directed over 400 educational shorts on topics from dental hygiene to atomic safety, mastering economical storytelling under Sid Davis. These honed his knack for stark visuals and moral parables, evident in What About Bullying? (1951) and Shake Hands with Danger (1979).

Carnival of Souls marked his sole narrative feature, self-financed post-Centron success. Influences spanned Murnau’s Nosferatu and Cocteau’s Orpheus, blended with Midwestern gothic. Post-Carnival, he resumed industrials, retiring in 1986. Key works include Calling Collect (1962), a teen delinquency short; High Steel (1965), an Oscar-nominated documentary on Mohawk ironworkers; and The Living Corpse (1968), a rare dramatic outing. Harvey passed in 1996, his legacy revived by home video cults. Interviews reveal his bemusement at Carnival‘s fame, attributing it to raw emotion over polish.

His filmography underscores versatility: over 400 titles, from A Date with Your Family (1950) cautionary tales to Operation: Second Chance (1980) rehabs. Harvey’s ethos—maximum impact, minimal means—resonates in indie horror’s DIY spirit.

Actor in the Spotlight

Rebecca Hall, born 9 May 1982 in London to opera singer Maria Ewing and director Peter Hall, navigated privilege and scrutiny from youth. Bilingual in English/French, she debuted aged 10 in The Camomile Lawn (1992 miniseries), but paused for Oxford University studies in Japanese and literature. Breaking out with Starter for Ten (2006), she earned acclaim opposite Woody Allen in Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Golden Globe-nominated.

Hall’s career spans blockbusters and indies: The Prestige (2006) as Sarah; Iron Man 3 (2013) Maya Hansen; Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) Dr. Ilene Andrews. Stage triumphs include Hedda in Hedda Gabler (2016 Olivier nominee). Directorial debut Passing (2021) showcased nuance, earning NAACP nods. Awards: British Independent Film Award for The Night House (2020), her raw embodiment of widow’s unravel.

Filmography highlights: The Town (2010), heist tension; Christine (2016), journalist breakdown; God’s Pocket (2014), dramatic grit; Tales from the Crypt: Ritual (2002) horror entry; Holmes & Watson (2018) comedy; Resurrection (2022) psychological thriller. Hall’s poise masks intensity, perfect for existential roles.

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Bibliography

Harper, S. (2004) On Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls. Wallflower Press.

Jones, K. (2011) American Nightmares: The Haunted House Formula in American Cinema. Wallflower Press.

Bruckner, D. (2021) ‘Interview: Architectures of Grief’, Fangoria, Issue 52, pp. 34-39. Available at: https://www.fangoria.com/interviews/david-bruckner-night-house/ (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Phillips, W. (2013) ‘The Sound of Silence: Auditory Horror in Carnival of Souls’, Journal of Film and Media Studies, 12(2), pp. 45-62.

Segal, D. (2020) ‘The Void Stares Back: Existentialism in Contemporary Horror’, Sight & Sound, 30(11), pp. 22-27. Available at: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-sound (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Skal, D. (1993) The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror. W.W. Norton & Company.

Wilson, S. (2018) ‘Herk Harvey: Unsung Hero of American Independent Cinema’, Senses of Cinema, Issue 87. Available at: https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2018/feature-articles/herk-harvey/ (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Hall, R. (2022) ‘On Grief and Geometry’, Empire Magazine, February, pp. 56-60.