I thought Mary was just very aloof and alienated from everyone else.
I've been chasing grace/ But grace ain't easy to find

Most of this thread is so bizarrely homophobic that I made an IMDb account just to comment.
Carnival of Souls is a HUGE, expansive movie thatbecause it's so simplisticdefinitely leaves a lot to interpretation. That's part of the joy of movies like these. No one is "forcing" homosexuality on a character by interpreting Mary as a lesbian, or even someone who wants to escape compulsory heterosexuality. In fact, part of compulsory heterosexuality is the idea that people are assumed heterosexual at the start, without any information. If no information is given about her sexuality, then people are allowed to use the film's images to form their own judgments. It's pretty clear that there is some weight to an interpretation of the movie as, even in part, about compulsory heterosexuality. That doesn't negate other threadsher inability to connect in general, the fact that she is dead, her lack of "soul." Philosophical questions etc.
NO indications of her sexuality =/= heterosexual. THAT is compulsory heterosexuality.
This stems from more than her resistance to one creepy man (her neighbor). Think of the way the camera often lingers on men staringat her, mostly. Men are often shot close up, their expressions vulgar. Think of the scene when she is running in the park and suddenly sees the man pressing on the water fountain. He lumbers toward her in a way that is zombie-like, but also similar to sexual aggression. At this timeafraid of a manshe is immediately psychologized by a doctor. Homosexuality was considered a mental illness until fairly recently. I could go into more detail but I'm writing this comment fairly quickly. There are many scenes like this. Also consider the figure of the homosexual, caught between the church that finds her obscene and the psychologist that is sympathetic but wants to classify her as mentally ill and the vulgar man who wants to assault her and peeps, disregarding boundaries, AND the older woman who understands her separation from men (the landlady has a hard time sleeping and mentions how men could hide in every corner of the house) but ultimately cannot relate or vocalize what is not socially accepted or understood. Think of Mary seeing images of men everywhere (the saints, or Jesus, in the church). Think of how her pursuer is simply referred to as the man. Think about the carnival danceone man to one womanand how horrified Mary is. Think of how she disassociates the first time in the department store, a place where women dress themselves in part to be appealing to men, or where capitalism legislates what is allowed to be feminine. Think of how the end suggests a choice: to die or to have been dead the whole time rather than to take part in the sick carnival dance.
This does NOT mean this is all that's going onbut it is definitely one thing going onwhether homosexuality or a fear of compulsory heterosexuality and the trappings (danger, isolation, vulgarity, the patriarchal morality of the church) involved.

SPOILER ALERT!
I probably don't need that as I presume everyone here has seen the movie. But just to be safe.

The movie is not about the sexuality of the main character. It is about the fact that she drowned in a car that was driven over a bridge into water. But she continues to go through the motions of life, all the while having death (in the form of the ghouls) trying to catch up.
Everything in the film is consistent with that. She's aloof around other people even to the point of avoiding them, drawn toward a place that represents death (the "dead" pavillion), and seems more connected with the netherworld than real life.
It's a remarkably good script for such a low budget film. No 90-foot mutant fuzzybears lurking behind the drapes or any of the ridiculous stuff you find in most of them.
Very creepy atmosphere with a really scary plot.

May I remind you that the dude featured in the movie was one of the creepiest guys I've ever seen played by anyone? A straight woman could easily find herself repelled by someone like him. And drag racing? Really? You're going to say feminine women only do this or that? Not sexist at all. Lesbian is a sexual preference not a lifestyle choice. I like the idea of running from zombie heterosexuality but I don't think that was it. Good idea for a movie though.

I don't think Mary's untouchability has anything to do with lesbianism; she's both alienated from meaningful human contact
and lacking any concept of spirituality and has apparently been so long before the accident that begins the film, as we can see
in her conversations with the organ manufacturer, minister, doctor and "nerd in lust" (as Roger Ebert calls him), fellow roomer John.
She is, in fact, so deeply in denial about the possibility of taking any real joy from life (except, perhaps, in her music)
that, in retrospect, it's hardly surprising it takes an entire week for her to realize "she's dead, Jim."
We don't get that here. People ski topless smoking dope, so irony's not a high priority.

Good points.

I think it's easy to read a lesbian subtext into "Carnival", especially in this day and age when we're utterly obsessed with sexuality and nothing outside matters of the body seems to have any relevance. (In the late '60s it was very easy to read a racial subtext into "Night of the Living Dead", and many critics did, but it simply wasn't there. The filmmakers have said repeatedly that the role of Ben wasn't written for a black actor; the most qualified performer landed the job, and that performer happened to be Duane Jones.) Actually, what Mary says to Dr. Samuels is that she has "no desire for the close company of other people." She doesn't go out of her way to make female friends and seems to enjoy flirting with Mr. Linden, if from a rather frosty distance. No, what's happening in "Carnival of Souls" is far more terrifying than being forced by society to deny or conceal one's sexual orientation: it's the loss of identity altogether, the inevitability of death. It's a memorable film because it deals with this universal fear so effectively.

I called him a little prick, not thinking of an actual little prick, but of some smarmy, weasly jerk. I won't body shame men on Imdb for having little penises, not my agenda.:-D

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Is sevenlilxenos trying to piss women off? I think so. Her body was created for a man's enjoyment not a woman's? Go beep yourself. Our bodies are created for ourselves to do what we want with them you little prick. They don't belong to you or anyone else.

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Well, she is dead after all. that pretty much kills a sex drive.
Always the officiant, never the bride.
http://www.withthiskissitheewed.com

I think it's very possible. I got that vibe a little too. Since this film came out in 62' it could be that they couldn't outright say it so they just implied it.
It would also explain why she was disinterested in church and basically kicked out.

I definitely think you're way off. The thing about lesbians is they're attracted to other women. There was never any scene where this was demonstrated. Although the "twist" probaly came as a surprise to no one (it was hinted at throughout the film), it just appears as though she has lived through a traumatic event and is isolating herself from everyone. It's not hard to see why she wouldn't have been attracted to the scrawny, balding, lowbrow, working class, brash young man (such a fellow can hardly hope to score an attractive college grad), and I don't know about her being in a car with two other women at the beginning, but I didn't read anything sexual into it (I mean please). They were either her friends, or (since it was mentioned that she kept mostly to herself even before the accident) just a carpool to and from work. She appeared to be "just along for the ride" and gave no verbal protest to the driver, so it looked as though they may not have been well acquainted. Other than that, she definitely seemed repressed and neurotic but that does not equal lesbian. Lesbians aren't generally repressed and neurotic, they just like other women. You're fishing in an empty hole.

Or perhaps she was just taking a cruise with a couple of her friends, and has no interest in a relationship (like many women I might add), and doesn't like forceful, unattractive guys, and doesn't care if a harmless old woman sees her in a towel. I think my guess is more correct considering this is 1962, and there was no plausible suggestion of homosexuality in the entire movie.

She wasn't portrayed as a lesbian, she was portrayed as someone who can't get close to anyone else. Why? She's DEAD! That's the whole point.

Huh?
Possible Sploilers*****
I think you may be reading way too much into it. To assume that because the lead in the movie is riding in a car with two females somehow translates to sexual preference, then we should also assume the same about the three males in the other car. Perhaps even that the three males at the river bank trying to retrieve the car were gays trying to "rescue" repressed lesbians. None of this would make any sense for a psychological ghost story.
I have several lesbian friends who have watched this movie with me, and neither of them saw anything more than a b-flick ghost story from 1962.
As far as the other scene you offer, when she expects the elderly land lady to be bringing her food, she is confronted at the door by a strange male. I think most level headed women would say, "whoops, please wait." Besides that, the guy was a certified creep. Nothing symbolic about that.
Mary seems to have lost touch with everything in this world. Her first line in the movie was, "I don't remember" From then on the recurring advice given to her was that she needs to play with "soul". And of course, the ending shows us why, and what she was running from.
I may not have a big tricked out name tag, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

For one lingering moment, at the end of the film when it showed the dead women in the car, a thought occured to me "maybe she was a lesbian." Although it probably wasn't all that crucial to the plot (or at least, it's something they had to hide really deep in the subtext back then), but it's a possibility.
I wantI wantI WANT EVERYTHING I'VE EVER SEEN IN THE MOVIES!

I didn't really think about her sexuality during the film.
Just because she likes drag racing and was hanging out with a couple of 'girl-friends' does not mean she's a lesbian and it looked like, she had trouble choosing friends. Not just boyfriends but the right companions for her. Remember , she did not really like the company of people most of the time . There for when she wanted to be with people. She didn't always make the right choice. In a way she was a bit of a social misfit, rather then a lesbian.

"I saw the dance at the end as being about her being sucked into zombie-ish heterosexuality and running from it."
Heterosexuality is zombie-ish. Wow. What a heterophobe.

Why is it that on seemingly half these message boards, there's always someone starting a thread insinuating that such and such a charcater is homosexual, asking about the sexual preferences of such and such an actor, etc.? Is this part of an astroturfing campaign by the homosexual lobby?

I'm not seeing any evidence that she is straight either. I think this subjecy highlights one of the strenghts of this film. She is missing a lot of standard descriptives, therefore many viewers can associate with her. Much of her characterizations are implied, this allows viewers to interpret many aspects of the film however thay want.

@ie_chiffre
Homosexuals are obsessed with rewriting history to make it seem as though homosexuality was more prevalent than it actually was
Actually, they're not rewriting historythey're simply writing about the parts of history made by homosexual individuals that were left out of the history books. Do the researchhomosexuality was just a regular part of ancient Rome. So, even in ancient times, in certain places, being gay wasn't considered that "aberrant", as you put it.
http://infomory.com/famous/famous-gays-throughout-history/

Yeah, you said it. Your interpretation which is the obvious one is far more consistent with the facts and the mood of the story than the original poster's.
Homosexuals are obsessed with rewriting history to make it seem as though homosexuality was more prevalent than it actually was (except, of course, for when a historical figure was a serial killer or a child molester or something like that; then it's bad PR to be associated with them, and they try to downplay that person's sexual preference). They're obsessed with reinterpreting works of art through a homosexual lens, like the OP is doing with this movie, or as some, for example, have done with Sherlock Holmes.
Homosexuals find it necessary to do this to make their lifestyle appear less aberrant than it is.
To the OP: believe it or not, there really were old maids who weren't lesbians. There really were men who didn't get married, not because they were light in the loafers, but because they saw it as an obstacle to their ambitions, or they just didn't get along well with women (misogyny is not synonymous with homosexuality). There really are people who are asexual and whose lack of interest in the opposite sex does not denote an interest in the same sex.
I know it may be hard for homosexuals to understand that the majority of people aren't like them, but it's the truth.