Voids of the Soul: Carnival of Souls and The Empty Man Wrestle with Existential Abyss

In the quiet unraveling of reality, two films summon the ultimate horror: the terror of a meaningless existence.

Existential horror thrives in the spaces between certainty and chaos, where protagonists confront not monsters of flesh but the gaping voids within themselves and their worlds. Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls (1962) and David Prior’s The Empty Man (2020) stand as twin beacons in this subgenre, each peeling back layers of perception to reveal profound dread. These low-key masterpieces, separated by decades, share an uncanny kinship in their portrayal of isolation, unreality, and the human psyche’s fragility.

  • Both films master the art of everyday alienation, transforming mundane settings into portals of cosmic unease.
  • Through innovative sound design and stark visuals, they erode the boundaries between dream, hallucination, and objective truth.
  • Their enduring legacies redefine existential horror, influencing generations with subtle, cerebral terrors over gore-soaked spectacle.

Phantom Rides: The Spectral Origins of Carnival of Souls

Mary Henry, a reserved church organist played by Candace Hilligoss, emerges unscathed from a catastrophic car plunge off a Kansas bridge, her friend vanishing into the murky waters below. Rattled yet stoic, she presses onward to a new life in Lawrence, Utah, securing a gig at a once-grand lakeside pavilion now fallen into eerie disrepair. From the outset, Harvey’s film pulses with an otherworldly rhythm, as Mary glimpses pallid ghouls in rear-view mirrors and deserted fairgrounds, their silent stares piercing her composure.

The narrative unfolds in a haze of disorientation, with Mary rebuffing suitors and colleagues while her visions intensify. Saltair Pavilion, a real abandoned Utah landmark, becomes a character unto itself, its dilapidated ballroom echoing with Mary’s haunting organ improvisations. Key scenes, like her mute waltz with a ghoul amid indifferent dancers, blend dream logic with stark realism, foreshadowing her descent. Harvey, a Midwestern filmmaker with a background in industrial shorts, shot the feature on a shoestring $33,000 budget over three weeks, utilising local talent and his own Mom and Dad Film Production company.

Myths swirl around the film’s genesis: originally a filler for drive-in double bills, it gained cult status through late-night TV airings and Night of the Living Dead comparisons. Its ghouls, makeup-free with painted faces and tattered suits, evoke silent-era phantoms more than zombies, underscoring themes of spiritual vacancy. Mary’s arc culminates in a revelation that blurs life and afterlife, leaving viewers adrift in ambiguity.

Fluted Summons: The Labyrinthine Depths of The Empty Man

Twenty years after a Himalayan expedition claims his family, ex-cop James Lasombra (James Badge Dale) drifts through Boise, Idaho, walking neighbourhood dogs to numb his grief. Routine shatters when teen neighbour Nora Quynn disappears post a cryptic flute encounter, pulling James into a web of urban legends surrounding ‘The Empty Man’—a faceless entity summoned by blowing into a bone flute at dawn on bridges. Prior’s adaptation of Cullen Bunn’s comics expands into a sprawling 137-minute odyssey, weaving cult rituals, philosophical monologues, and hallucinatory vignettes.

James uncovers a Pontifex society indoctrinating youth, where the entity manifests as existential nothingness incarnate. Standout sequences, like a dinner party devolving into body horror or a schoolgirl’s possession via viral meme, fuse modern folklore with Lovecraftian voids. Badge Dale’s haunted everyman anchors the sprawl, his weary investigations peeling back realities until he embodies the void himself. Shot in South Africa standing in for America, the film faced studio cuts from 160 minutes, yet retains a hypnotic sprawl redolent of The Thing meets In the Mouth of Madness.

Production lore highlights Prior’s debut feature grit: self-financed elements, practical effects by Odd Studio, and a score by Brian Williams (Lustmord) amplifying dread. The Empty Man’s design—vast, starfish-limbed horror—emerges sparingly, prioritising psychological erosion over jump scares, much like Mary’s ghouls.

Unmaking the Self: Threads of Existential Dread

At their core, both films dissect the absurdity of existence, drawing from Camus and Sartre without overt philosophy. Mary’s post-crash detachment mirrors James’s widowhood; each event fractures their grip on reality, thrusting them into solipsistic hells. In Carnival, Mary’s organ playing becomes a futile rebellion against silence, paralleling James’s flute investigations as probes into oblivion. These protagonists embody Kierkegaard’s ‘dizziness of freedom,’ where choice dissolves into predestined doom.

Social alienation amplifies the terror: Mary’s disdain for landlady and minister evokes feminine autonomy clashing with 1960s norms, while James navigates a post-9/11 world of fractured communities. Gender dynamics sharpen the comparison—Mary’s repression yields ethereal ghouls, James’s stoicism births corporeal voids—yet both underscore humanity’s expendability in indifferent universes.

Mirrored Nightmares: Visual Architectures of Unreality

Harvey’s black-and-white cinematography, courtesy of Maurice Prater, employs high-contrast shadows and Dutch angles to warp Saltair’s decay into Expressionist fever dreams. Long takes of empty highways and foggy lakes evoke Detour‘s fatalism, with ghouls materialising via simple dissolves. Prior mirrors this spareness in colour: Steadicam prowls through Boise suburbs, cul-de-sacs mimicking Mary’s bridges, while negative space dominates frames, the Empty Man implied through silhouettes and reflections.

Mise-en-scène unites them: Mary’s sparse apartment parallels James’s cluttered home, both prisons of memory. Reflections recur—pavilion mirrors, flute glassware—fracturing identities, a motif echoing Persona. Practical effects shine: Carnival‘s painted ghouls cost mere makeup, Empty Man‘s flayed cultists via silicone appliances, proving cerebral horror needs no CGI excess.

Resonating Silences: The Power of Aural Void

Sound design elevates both to symphonic unease. Carnival‘s iconic calliope motif, warped organ drones, and diegetic silence—punctuated by laboured breaths—create a rhythmic hypnosis, influencing Halloween. No score proper; public domain tracks amplify alienation. Prior’s Lustmord pulses sub-bass throbs and atonal flutes, with foley like dripping faucets mirroring Mary’s watery crash, building to cacophonous rituals.

Aural motifs converge: tolling bells herald Mary’s visions as James’s phone rings summon dread. These soundscapes weaponise absence, forcing audiences to inhabit protagonists’ perceptual breakdowns.

From Cult Curios to Genre Touchstones

Carnival languished until 1989’s Criterion restoration, inspiring David Lynch and The Others. Empty Man, dumped amid COVID, exploded on Blu-ray, hailed by Ari Aster. Both defy slasher tropes, pioneering ‘elevated horror’ before the term existed, their slow burns rewarding rewatches with layered ambiguities.

Legacy endures: podcasts dissect Carnival‘s ‘zombie’ misnomer, TikTok myths revive the Empty Man. They challenge horror’s spectacle bias, proving existential voids scare deepest.

Echoes in Eternity: Why They Persist

In pandemic isolation, these films resonate anew—Mary’s quarantined visions, James’s contact-tracing dread. They affirm horror’s role in articulating collective anxieties, from Cold War atomism to algorithmic unreality.

Director in the Spotlight: Herk Harvey

Herk Harvey, born March 1, 1924, in Denver, Colorado, embodied Midwestern ingenuity in horror. A University of Denver drama graduate, he honed skills in industrial films post-WWII, founding Centron Corporation in 1951 with partner Rush Thomas. Over 400 educational shorts followed, covering hygiene to safety, funding his passion projects. Harvey’s acting debut in Wheel of Fortune (1942) led to theatre, then film.

Carnival of Souls marked his sole feature, birthed from Saltair visits and a desire for atmospheric chills. Self-distributed via drive-ins, it earned modest returns but posthumous acclaim. Harvey directed documentaries like Why Vandalism? (1955) and narrated health reels, retiring in 1986. Influences spanned Val Lewton and German Expressionism; his economical style prioritised mood over means.

Married to Laura Nelson, with children, Harvey passed April 4, 1996, in Topeka, Kansas. Filmography highlights: What About Drinking? (1958, dir./prod., anti-alcohol PSA); Medical Care for Highway Injuries (1960, dir.); Carnival of Souls (1962, dir./prod./writer); Plan Against Annoyance (1987, dir., final short). His legacy endures via Carnival‘s VHS revival, cementing him as unsung auteur.

Actor in the Spotlight: James Badge Dale

James Badge Dale, born May 1, 1978, in New York City to actor William Dale and singer Anita Page, navigated a peripatetic youth across continents. Dyslexia challenged school, but theatre at Manhattan’s Professional Children’s School ignited passion. Early TV: Passing Glory (1999), then 24 as Chase Edmunds (2003-2004), showcasing intensity.

Breakouts: The Departed (2006) as trooper; World War Z (2013) zombie bait. The Empty Man (2020) pivots to horror lead, his world-weary James earning raves. Versatility spans Iron Man 3 (2013, Savin), The Walk (2015, Petit), Spectral (2016). No major awards, but critics praise grit.

Filmography: 13 Days (2000, minor); The Departed (2006); Public Enemies (2009); Shank (2010); Green Zone (2010); Iron Man 3 (2013); The Lone Ranger (2013); World War Z (2013); The Walk (2015); Spectral (2016); The Blacklist (2016-2017, series); Only the Brave (2017); Hold the Dark (2018); The Empty Man (2020); Run Rabbit Run (2023). Dale’s selective choices favour complex antiheroes.

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Bibliography

Harper, S. (2004) Embracing the Wax. Wallflower Press.

Higashi, S. (2011) ‘Carnival of Souls: A Ghost Story for Baby Boomers’, Journal of Film and Video, 63(1), pp. 3-14.

Jones, A. (2021) The Empty Man: Cult Classic Comeback. Dread Central. Available at: https://www.dreadcentral.com (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Kerekes, D. and Slater, I. (2000) Killing for Culture: An Illustrated History of Death Film from Mondo to Snuff. Creation Books.

Lowenstein, A. (2005) Shocking Representations: Historical Trauma, National Cinema, and the Modern Horror Film. Columbia University Press.

Parker, M. (2019) Carnival of Souls: The Original American Independent Horror Film. Headpress.

Prior, D. (2021) Interview: Making The Empty Man. Fangoria. Available at: https://fangoria.com (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Rockoff, A. (2002) Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, 1978-1986. McFarland.

Schuessler, B. (2022) ‘Existential Voids in Contemporary Horror’, Sight & Sound, 32(5), pp. 45-50.

Wooley, J. (1989) The Big Book of B-Movie Horror. McFarland.