Blu-ray, DVD Release: Carnival of Souls

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: July 12, 2016
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion

In the 1962’s bizarre Carnival of Souls, a young woman (Candace Hilligoss) in a small Kansas town survives a drag race accident, then agrees to take a job as a church organist in Salt Lake City. En route, she becomes haunted by a bizarre apparition that compels her toward an abandoned lakeside pavilion.

Candace Hilligoss in Carnival of Souls

Made by industrial filmmakers on a modest budget, the eerily effective B-movie classic Carnival of Souls was intended to have “the look of a Bergman and the feel of a Cocteau”—and, with its strikingly used locations and spooky organ score, it succeeds.

Herk Harvey’s macabre horror masterpiece gained a cult following on late-night television and continues to inspire filmmakers today.

Criterion’s Blu-ray and DVD editions contain the following:

• New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Selected-scene audio commentary featuring director Herk Harvey and screenwriter John Clifford
• New interview with comedian and writer Dana Gould
• New video essay by film critic David Cairns
• The Movie That Wouldn’t Die!,a documentary on the 1989 reunion of the film’s cast and crew
• The Carnival Tour,a 2000 update on the film’s locations
• Excerpts from movies made by the Centron Corporation, an industrial film company based in Lawrence, Kansas, that once employed Harvey and Clifford
• Deleted scenes
• Outtakes, accompanied by Gene Moore’s organ score
• History of the Saltair Resort in Salt Lake City, where key scenes in the film were shot
• Trailer
• More!
• An essay by writer and programmer Kier-La Janisse

Buy or Rent Carnival of Souls
DVD | Blu-ray