Carnival of Souls (1998)

i must have seen a different film!!

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Although this movie claims to be a remake of the 1960s movie of the same name, it really isn't. It just borrows a few minor details from the original film, and spends most of its time doing its own thing. I wasn't really bothered by that, and I simply requested that this "remake" be good. But it isn't. As others here have reported, this is an extremely slow moving movie, where scene after scene of no real consequence happens. And when things do happen, it's often very confusing, not making it clear if what happens is in the imagination of the heroine or is actually happening. At the end, I was not quite sure what had indeed happened. I will say that the movie looks okay for what was reportedly just a two million dollar budget, but the decent look in no way compensates for the movie's shortcomings.

Candace Hilligoss, the heroine of the original Carnival of Souls wrote a treatment for a sequel to the original 1962 film which remained faithful to the original story. Unfortunately Wes Craven discovered the idea and tore it apart. The remake says in the opening credits, "A Film by Adam Grossman." I don't know who he is, but the audience should know that if they ever see "A Film by Adam Grossman" on any movie, it should be a cue to run for the nearest exit! Maybe Grossman is one of Craven's aliases..who knows. The remake is, predictably, just another Wes Craven gore-fest that has absolutely nothing to do with the original film. Had he thought up a different title I wouldn't be quite so annoyed. As for Bobbie Phillips (from Showgirls no less) she is no Candace Hilligoss and, as an actress, should really try to choose her roles with more care.I'd write more but this is just another case of a very limited director taking on a low-budget classic and ruining it.

One could say that this was worth watching just to hear Shawnee Smith sing, but that would not cover all of it.It was a psychological horror film much in the manner of The Sixth Sense. Bobbie Phillips (Evil Breed: The Legend of Samhain) does a great job of playing a sister who was sexually abused as a child and witnessed her mother's murder by the abuser. She keeps reliving the horror until she can rest in peace.Larry Miller (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) was perfect as the sleaze-ball who befriended a woman just to get to her daughters. Typical sexual predator behavior.Shawnee Smith was also great as the sister, but her role was minor compared to Phillips.

I was recommend by someone to check this film out, and it was just terrible. The opening was interesting, and it had a lot of potential. But it just went downhill from that point. The acting was terrible, and the music was corny. The story was not bad, but the way it was executed was very lazy and careless. All of the hallucinations that Alex had tended to get on my nerves, because there were so many of them, and they became very distracting after a while. I was waiting for something redeeming to save this film, but nothing saves this train-wreck of a movie. The ending is rather laughable too, avoid at all costs. I wasted $5 bucks renting this piece of crap. Don't make the same mistake I did.