Carnival of Souls (1962)

Carnival of Souls (UR)

"Fresh Organ"

A young woman driving to a new town to start her new job as a church organist (!?) is besieged by visions of waterlogged figures, ghostly ghouls who pursue her through abandoned boardwalks and on streets of her newly adopted home.  What secret could be revealed in their dead gaze?

Shot on a microscopic budget, the movie achieves much with its moddy organmusic score, rich black and white photography and a plot structure that either for intelligence or budgetary reasons is not spoon fed to the viewer.  Carnival is similar to the best of the Twilight Zone TV series, though predating those and lacking some the series inappropriate humor.  Souls obviously inspired many future horror films (not the least of which being Romero's Dead films), but sitll could teach us all a thing or two about small town exuberance, working miracles withing your means and comes wrapped in brilliant outsider-industry charm

7 Empty Merry-Go-Rounds are Creepy, who knew?  out of 10 (GOOD)

Reptilicus (1962)

Reptilicus - Review

"Appetite for destruction"

This Danish Monster flick is a bizarre hybrid of the post-Godzilla giant dino trashes a city genre mixed with a Denmark tourist bureau travelouge.  Shot concurrently in Danish and English, the American release features flat overdubs, a re-edit and a cheesy attempt to add some terrible special effects after removing scenes deemed too terrible by API, a lipstick on a pig scenario if there ever was one (a snake-like inarticulate puppet on strings kind of pig).  Inept in every way, yet it is a cult favorite in Denmark and the States.  It's hard not to love/hate the long drawn out science, journeyman direction, amateurish acting-not-in-native-language stoicism, the excess of stock footage, the obvious propaganda of 1960s Copenhagen, the z-grade puppet work, and the eye-popping yokel Peterson whose musical number was thankfully slashed from the American release.  However there are plenty of reasons to tune in, the roundabout plot and general foreignness lend a humorist and surrealist tone as Denmark's entire military and populous seems to have been mobilized for the finale.  That bridge scene definitely took some guts on everyone's part and we won't see it's like again in First World filmmaking.  

Make sure you watch out for Reptilicus' green acid spit, it's clumsy implementation stings the eyes of both film character and film viewer.

2 AKVARIUMS out of 10 (AWFUL)