DVD Reviews: The RiffTrax Collection from Legend Films - Page 5

Although it was nothing more than a quickie gimmicky fright flick with a generous serving of red herring, House On Haunted Hill made a killing at the box office, beget the now-tired trend of horror movie clichés and even inspired Hitchcock to make Psycho. House On Haunted Hill is good fun either by itself or with the RiffTrax crew mercilessly haggling the poor actors onscreen, especially Elisha Cook, Jr. (the drunken leprechaun), Julie Mitchum (scotch and scotch and more scotch), and the continuously thwarted advancements of Richard Long (whom the boys have singing Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” for some reason). Rating: B+

Carnival Of Souls (1962)
Directed by Herk Harvey

“She’s managed to get in a single car accident in Utah? That’s Kelsey Grammer level talent.”

Out of all the movies in this collection, Carnival Of Souls is one of two titles that makes me raise my eyebrow a bit as it is one of my all-time favorite movies. But, as Mike, Kevin, and Bill prove, even a highly-rated cult classic like this one can still be turned into a laff-riot.

After a disastrous attempt at drag-racing, three women crash into the muddy waters of Lawrence, Kansas. Several hours later one of the ladies, Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss), emerges — seemingly unharmed. Determined to forget all of the inexplicable how-did-you-survive-being-three-hours-underwater-following-a-car-crash bit, Mary packs her bag and heads off to Utah to play an organ in a church (“Yep, I’m always amazed at how much hard work, and ingenuity, and sheer human labor goes into making such monumentally annoying music!”). Once she enters the “black hole of Utah,” however, Mary begins to see ghostly pasty-faced figures in the shadows of the night (including director Herk Harvey). As if that wasn’t bad enough, Mary also has a total perv of a neighbor (“Just a warnin’: do not eye his lemon drink.”) with a wandering eye. Actually, Mary’s eye tends to wander a bit as well… hmmm… must be a Utah thing.

Like I said before, Carnival Of Souls is a personal favorite of mine: it was made on a shoestring budget, never made any money theatrically due to a shady distributor who ran off with the proceeds, and yet still managed to become one of the creepiest B-movies ever made. Director Herk Harvey (who made over four-hundred educational shorts with the Centron Corporation in Kansas over a 30-year period) and writer John Clifford (Harvey’s regular collaborator at Centron) shot the entire project while they were on vacation and cemented their names in the annals of psychological horror in the process (even if it did take about 30 years to do so). The RiffTrax commentary here is truly engaging and very witty: harping on the constant organ music heard throughout the film, the emotionally blank lead actress, the creepy neighbor and, of course, the many parallels between Mary’s non-existence and the experience of attending Comic-Con. Rating: B-

Article Author: Luigi Bastardo

Luigi Bastardo is the disgruntled alter-ego of Adam Becvar, a thirtysomething lad from Northern California who has watched so many weird movies since the tender age of 3 that a conventional life is out of the question. …

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