Carnival of Souls

Carnival of Souls was a low-budget "B" film ($33,000 in 1962) that did mediocre business on release, but has become a cult classic; enough of one to merit a Criterion DVD release. In fact, some people consider it to be the best "B" movie ever made.

The plot is hard to summarize without spoilers, but its essence is a young woman who perceives, with gradually increasing frequency, images of a horrid, deformed stranger (as, for example, a temporary appearance in a mirror). The screw tightens until, at the climax, we find out who The Man is and why she has been receiving these visitations.

The movie is a case of an obscenely high-number of routine, standard tropes that more or less accidentally happen to work to a whole greater than the sum of the parts (or of the makers' designs and--arguably--capabilities).

Along with a handful of other films, it also has the distinction of being riffed twice by Mike Nelson: First on the colorized DVD released by Legend Films, the second time with help from Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett on Riff Trax.

In 1998, a Wes Craven-produced remake was released, which received mixed, mostly-negative reviews. While it, too, is available on DVD, it's a pretty safe bet that it won't ever get a Criterion release.

The Original Contains Examples of:

 * Alone in a Crowd
 * Amusement Park of Doom
 * Bad Dreams:
 * Be Careful What You Wish For:
 * Big Bad: The Man
 * Butt Monkey: John
 * Celibate Hero
 * Chase Scene
 * Cold Open
 * Dances and Balls: Part of the Carnival's backstory..
 * Deadpan Snarker: Mary when she has coffee with John. This part honestly plays more like a period sit-com than a horror movie.
 * Defrosting Ice Queen
 * The End
 * Evil Albino
 * Fridge Horror: The really scary thing about Carnival of Souls is what it implies about the afterlife. Forget pearly gates and tunnels of light; when you die, you become a cackling ghoul who haunts the desolate and abandoned corners of the world.
 * Haunted Heroine
 * Hazardous Water
 * Hollywood Driving
 * Ineffectual Loner: Mary.
 * In the End You Are on Your Own
 * Looks Like Cesare: The Man, to some extent
 * Mirror Monster
 * Motifs: Water is either present or referenced to in a lot of the scary stuff . It's inconsistent though as some of The Man's apperances have nothing to do with water.
 * Mr. Exposition: Several examples.
 * No Name Given: The Big Bad
 * Oh Crap: An oddly-delayed version of this occurs
 * Ominous Pipe Organ: If you love this sort of thing, Carnival of Souls will be your dream movie; if you hate it, steer clear.
 * Our Ghosts Are Different
 * Parental Abandonment: Inverted. Mary refuses to visit her folks after the accident.
 * Perpetual Smiler: The Man
 * Preacher Man
 * John
 * Silent Antagonist
 * Slasher Smile: The Man is almost always like this, but the other Undead only break into a smile near the end.
 * Stalker with a Crush: John, as well as a possible way to interpret The Man.
 * Sugar and Ice Personality
 * Surreal Horror
 * The Undead
 * Slasher Smile: The Man is almost always like this, but the other Undead only break into a smile near the end.
 * Stalker with a Crush: John, as well as a possible way to interpret The Man.
 * Sugar and Ice Personality
 * Surreal Horror
 * The Undead
 * The Undead
 * The Undead

Tropes Present In the Remake That Were Not In The Original:

 * Dark and Troubled Past
 * Disappeared Dad
 * Heroic Sacrifice: The reason Alex's car crashed in the beginning is that she was trying to pull off one of these,.
 * Mama Bear: Alex toward Sandra.
 * Missing Mom
 * Monster Clown
 * Panty Shot
 * Revenge: Louis's motive.
 * Taking You with Me: In the opening, Alex deliberately steers her car off the road so that the paedophile who is holding her hostage won't be able to kill her sister. She ends up surviving.
 * Panty Shot
 * Revenge: Louis's motive.
 * Taking You with Me: In the opening, Alex deliberately steers her car off the road so that the paedophile who is holding her hostage won't be able to kill her sister. She ends up surviving.