Okay, gang: what happens when you watch a remake from the director of Sometimes They Come Back.Again, produced by the director of Warlock: The Armageddon, with Wes Cravens name attached to draw an audience? Heres a hint: the villain is played by Larry Miller, who was anally raped by a hamster in The Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps. Carnival Of Souls has ambitions similar to that hamster, except it wants to spray itself with shellac, put spikes through its feet and gorge itself until its the size of a pineapple before donning a miners helmet and taking that trip up yonder. But it either overate or is a lazy sumbitch because instead it just sits there spitting at you until it dies of a cerebral oedema and begins reeking up the joint. Craven mightve had nothing to do with Souls (he presents the film), but its ironic that the films antagonist played by director Herk Harvey in the 1962 original here becomes a Freddy Krueger-ish bogeyman who wears clown make-up, appears at will and possesses powers that dont require an explanation. In other words, they threw out Harveys movie and made Elm Street-lite. Shame on you, guys.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
