Carnival of Souls (1962)

"After a traumatic accident, a woman becomes drawn to a mysterious abandoned carnival."

I don't own any Criterion DVDs because I find them overpriced and don't really have much interest in their selection. If I were to buy one, however, it would be "Carnival of Souls" even though it's in the public domain and I have at least six copies of it in budget multi-packs already.

The reason I would buy "Carnival of Souls" again is the transfer. All the public domain versions are pretty horrible including the one on my YouTube channel which I've embedded above. If Criterion are to be respected for anything, it's that they nearly always find the best print available. There have been exceptions to the rule, but that's another story.

Make no mistake about it, "Carnival of Souls" is hardly the usual pretentious "arthouse" weirdness that Criterion are best known for. Apart from the innovative titles and a few surreal scenes which might indicate otherwise, "Carnival of Souls" is little more than a feature length version of a Twilight Zone episode called "The Hitch Hiker" (which in turn was based on an Orson Welles radio play from 1946). Allegedly, Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge" may have also been an inspiration for the story, but I've never read it and don't know.

Despite the unoriginality which most people wouldn't notice anyway, "Carnival of Souls" has a lot going for it especially in terms of atmosphere, a funereal organ music soundtrack, and, obviously, one of the most beautiful women to ever appear in a horror movie - Candace Hilligoss.

If the picture of her above isn't enough to get you to endure some old black and white nonsense then there's no hope for you. As Mary Henry, Candace Hilligoss may play one of the most frigid 1960s' horror heroines you ever encounter, but you can't deny that she's gorgeous.

The pushy John Linden (played by Sidney Berger) is certainly enamoured by Mary Henry. At first, Mary does precious little to encourage John's bad chat-up lines, and his drunken, predatory advances become increasingly loaded with menace and potential rapeyness.

These scenes are quite complex in some ways and very uncomfortable to watch. As they develop, there's actually only one way of describing Mary Henry, and it consists of two words ending in "tease". Although there's more to her actions than that, the whole relationship between Mary and John highlights a couple of very damaged individuals indeed, and that's the point. Even if everything was right in the world, they would hardly be a match made in heaven.

For 90% of the film, "Carnival of Souls" bumbles along quite nicely as what appears to be the psychological study of a schizoid personality disorder. It's suggested that because Mary is strong-willed and solitary by nature, her symptoms of depersonalisation and derealisation are the inevitable result. As things get progressively worse, there's a twist which I'm not going to spoil for you.

If you've never seen "Carnival of Souls" before, now is your chance. It's a creepy enough movie at any time of year, but it's especially good at Hallowe'en given what Hallowe'en is really supposed to be about.

Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)

"Abetted by the elderly Dr. Hertz (Thorley Waters) and handyman Hans (Robert Morris), Baron Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) determines that the soul does not immediately leave the body upon death, and can be transplanted from one body to another with a special apparatus he has developed."

Since "Frankenstein Created Woman" is yet another overpriced and OOP R1 DVD, I've embedded the full movie from YouTube above. It's also another old Hammer movie which you've probably seen anyway so I don't need to spend much time reviewing it.

Set in an unnamed European country (either Austria or Switzerland) during an equally difficult to pin down historical period, "Frankenstein Created Woman" is a "fantasy" movie which is more about the drama than terror.

As ever, Peter Cushing provides a lot of class as Baron Frankenstein in this huge departure from Mary Shelley's original piece of science fiction. Thorley Walters also gives an exceptionally good performance as the amusingly named Doctor Hertz. In many ways, he's channelling Nigel Bruce's bumbling Doctor Watson throughout.

The real attraction, however, is Susan Denberg as Christina who evokes sympathy right from the beginning as she hides her disfigured face with her hair. It's not enough to hide her true beauty from her lover Hans (Robert Morris) or anyone else other than three excellently played but spiteful bullies.

In fact, the cruelty which the bullies inflict on poor Christina is one of the most harrowing parts of "Frankenstein Created Woman" which deserves far more attention than I'm going to give it. Suffice it to say that "Frankenstein Created Woman" is a great piece of wish-fulfilment fantasy for those who have ever been bullied themselves. Revenge is apparently best served cold in a mended body with a transferred soul.

Even though "Frankenstein Created Woman" lapses into the usual scientific silliness about resurrecting the dead, it deals with themes of injustice and vengeance quite admirably. It also unwittingly throws up a few questions about transgender issues which I'm sure get discussed on sites with an axe to grind about such things.

"Frankenstein Created Woman" is a sparsely populated, slightly stagey, and obviously low-budget production which looks better than it should do thanks to the geniuses at Bray Studios. While it doesn't have the great atmosphere of earlier Hammer horror movies and some of the camerawork could be better, it's a kind of in the middle deal due to having a much better story.

As a big fan of Hammer horror movies, I rate "Frankenstein Created Woman" quite highly despite its rather tame exploitation scenes which in no way match up to the promotional stills. Although "Frankenstein Created Woman" is listed as "Unrated", I wouldn't class it as more than a PG-13. There isn't much gore or anything too scary about it even for children so, apart from a very minor sex scene, it's almost good wholesome family entertainment.

If you are looking for something cosy and not too extreme for Hallowe'en, you can't really go wrong with horror movies from this period. If, like me, you grew up seeing everything by Hammer and Amicus repeated ad nauseum by the BBC, you might not be quite so eager to revisit them. Trust me though, it's always worth giving them another airing if only for the pretty girls and the nostalgia.