So it all actually happend and wasn't just in her 'Spirits Minds'?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Carnival of Souls
drowninghero — 16 years ago(March 10, 2010 06:31 AM)
So her soul became tangible and actually lived it's life out in the real world?
Is that what was meant by showing the scene with the footprints?
At first I thought this was like Jacob's Ladder where everything was a limbo insid of her spirit and at the end she truly dies and everything she thought she was doing was imaginary. But with watching the scene where the priest and people see the footprints and car, that means that she really was in the real world as a spirit, and that's why sometimes people couldn't see her?
SO EVERYONE she encountered just saw a real life ghost???
This movie just got a lot better for me.
LOVE IT!
myspace.com/drowninghero -
gunforanarm — 14 years ago(October 19, 2011 12:33 AM)
During my sixth or seventh viewing of this film I finally came up with what I believe is a pretty solid interpretation of the events.
I would agree with you that there was something strange going on where her spirit hadn't quite crossed over yet but somehow people on earth could (usually) see her and interact with her.
But as far as the ghoulish man (and later the other ghouls) I think those are "demons" or whatever you might call them. Notice that one always appears either directly before or after Mary interacts with a character that in one way or another steers her down the wrong path.
Also she frequently sees the creepy ghoul man and then realizes it's her own reflection. I think this represents her belief that she is not a good person due to her inability to function on a normal social level.
I think the carnival represents hell - this is why the priest could show her the pavilion but not actually take her inside. As her soul begins to cross over (and people can't see her or hear her on earth) she has made her choice and is drawn to hell. She has a last second change of heart/panic moment and tries to escape but it's too late.
I may be reading into the plot way more than the actual writer did but watching the film again with all that in mind was a lot of fun. -
gunforanarm — 14 years ago(November 02, 2011 09:55 AM)
Thanks! It seems this movie always gets praised for its creepy music and atmosphere but I don't think the script gets quite enough credit.
www.podcastofthetough.com -
gunforanarm — 14 years ago(February 27, 2012 10:10 PM)
It's just in how I feel that the character is played. She has some sort of guilt about something. The last time I watched the film I started to feel like she thinks she's a bad person or at least a person who is not worthy.
I'd have to watch it again to say for sure what specific parts of the movie made me think that way. I'm sure I'll watch it again at some point
www.podcastofthetough.com -
m_antonioni — 9 years ago(April 12, 2016 10:07 PM)
why would she go to hell? She did not seem that much of a 'sinful' person.
This is early 1960s America, and everybody in the film is a Protestant. According to Protestantism, you are saved by grace alone, not by good works. It doesn't matter how big a sinner you are; what matters is whether you accept Christ as your savior. Mary evidently does not.
From the dialog:
Mary: To me, a church is just a place of business.
John: Well, that's a funny way to look at it.
Mary: Why? People seem shocked because I took a job in a church, and I regard it simply as a job. I'm a professional organist. I play for pay, that's all.
John: Thinkin' like that, don't that give you nightmares?
So in the meaning system of Christianity, Mary is damned simply because she rejects Christ. And before you start worrying that this is a "Christian" film: I doubt that a "devout" Christian would make a horror film. -
wyldeone2 — 9 years ago(May 15, 2016 12:41 PM)
I agree with m_antonioni that this is probably not supposed to be a film for devout christian's with specific warnings about going hell or in limbo. In ghost lore they exist because of improper death without reason and no proper burial to allow the spirit to crossover. However, your observations and quoted dialog certainly eludes to it.
Consider some other scenes and references. How about the hymn, "Shall We Gather At The River" or as Mary walks out of the water as symbolic of being baptized, washed clean and born again. It was like she was being given a second chance to change the way she looked at life.
When she played the organ and she was barefoot pressing the pedals, it made me think of the "Paul is Dead" hoax from The Beatles Abby Road crossing even though that happened 5 or 6 years after this film was made.
The actress Candace Hilligoss was really good in this film. Compare her face to another actress in character who has a similar lack of love for life.
http://www.the-migrant-type.com/blog/2014/1/10/32-to-29-carnies-to-barbies.html
Candace is about 1/2 page down at number 32 on the link above.
You would have to have seen the Andy Griffith Show with Lydia to understand the oddness of her being similar to Mary. But they do look alike.
http://mayberry.wikia.com/wiki/Lydia_Crosswaithe
Books and movies are usually better than real life.
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Trax-3 — 9 years ago(August 04, 2016 09:22 PM)
According to Protestantism, you are saved by grace alone, not by good works. It doesn't matter how big a sinner you are; what matters is whether you accept Christ as your savior.
That would be Calvinism, something not necessarily accepted by other denominations. -
Melton1 — 2 months ago(January 02, 2026 12:00 AM)
I doubt that a "devout" Christian would make a horror film.
William Peter Blatty, who wrote The Exorcist, was a Catholic.
His goal was to make an audience believe in the possibility of pure evil, and therefore pure good aka God. -
denise1234 — 13 years ago(April 29, 2012 04:22 PM)
gunforanarm^
"But as far as the ghoulish man (and later the other ghouls) I think those are "demons" or whatever you might call them. Notice that one always appears either directly before or after Mary interacts with a character that in one way or another steers her down the wrong path."
Wow!
I have seen this movie umpteen times (I drag it out and watch it every Halloween) and have never noticed that.
Now I will have to pull it out earlier than usual to watch for that
I also like your other interpretations.
I have read some other ones on this message board and, although some are interesting, I think that some folks go a bit overboard with heavy-duty psychological/religious interpretation; although some psychological subtext is present in the story, I as a viewer don't want to miss the forest for the trees: that this is just one very good horror flick about a lost soul refusing to accept death.
"I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than..a rude remark or a vulgar action" Blanche DuBois -
gunforanarm — 13 years ago(May 16, 2012 12:07 AM)
This is a movie that seems quite simplistic upon the first viewing or two but every successive time I've watched it since then I notice something that I haven't before.
I was making myself nuts trying to figure out if any of the subtext I noticed was actually there or if I was adding it myself. Haha. At the very least it's made for some good conversation with people who have seen the film.
www.podcastofthetough.com -
fiatlux-1 — 13 years ago(October 04, 2012 06:11 PM)
although some psychological subtext is present in the story, I as a viewer don't want to miss the forest for the trees: that this is just one very good horror flick about a lost soul refusing to accept death.
I agree. I love this movie, I have seen it dozens of times. And I too drive myself nuts trying to figure out if there is more to the story, or if it is (as you say) a very good film about a lost soul that either cannot accept death or got lost along the way to the afterlife.
A couple of things confused me about this film: If Mary is just a soul, how is she able to eat? Drink? We see her do both. When she emerges from the water in the beginning, people put their arms around herand surely take her to the hospital! That would mean she has blood, urine, etc.
She drives a car, takes a bath, like any living human.
Yet she seems soulless. She's cold, almost blank.
And when she says that she never had an urge to be with a man ever?
Does she just not recall it or is there another meaning to that?
Why does she join what seems to be hellish ghouls? She seems like a good person.
"I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus."
"Didn't he discover America?"
"Penfold, shush." -
uruseiranma — 13 years ago(October 10, 2012 01:16 PM)
A couple of things confused me about this film: If Mary is just a soul, how is she able to eat? Drink? We see her do both. When she emerges from the water in the beginning, people put their arms around herand surely take her to the hospital! That would mean she has blood, urine, etc.
She drives a car, takes a bath, like any living human.
Yet she seems soulless. She's cold, almost blank.
Until she emerges from the water, we know very little about her, but she does seem so distant at times. i often thought of her as being in some sort of limbo between life and death, being why she doesn't interact well with the living, or want to go over to the other side with the 'ghouls.'
I thought of limbo in the scene where she pushes the one guy away and he leaves, yet she yells that she doesn't want to be alone.
"Thanks, guys." "So long, partner."- Toy Story 3 (9/10)
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richard-III — 10 years ago(August 01, 2015 05:00 AM)
But in the end she gets dragged out of the water, lifeless. And she just got drowned.
So there really isn't much time between her accident and the ending, certainly not the time we see and feel in this wonderful movie.
-I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.- -
Melton1 — 2 months ago(January 02, 2026 12:16 AM)
While it’s fun to speculate I think it’s just a simple case of us watching her ‘death dream’. It’s all in her head, or soul, or psyche at the moment of her death.
I suspect David Lynch was heavily influenced by this, his movies (and TV) often take place inside a character’s psyche, but also blur with reality so you’re never 100% sure.
The characters discovering her disappearing foot and hand prints at the end are, I think, just part of her inner story. She’s accepting that she is not part of the living world anymore.
I love the stuff when she detaches from ‘reality’ and becomes deaf, while other characters can’t see or hear her. Very creepy and isolating.
I think the religious stuff and her rejection of it is why she is stuck in this limbo. She doesn’t believe she has a soul and so her soul cannot move on. Only at the end does she accept that she is dead, as she is dragged off by the souls of other dead people.
Great film.