Candace Hilligoss was the most attractive zombie in movie history in
"Carnival of Souls"
"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" for 12/1/89
Candace Hilligoss was the most attractive zombie in movie history in
"Carnival of Souls"
By Joe Bob Briggs
Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas
I'm getting a little sick of this stuff. First they did it to "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Then they did it to "Blood Feast." They're starting in on "Suspiria." And now, the latest victim of an Attack by Zombie College Professors is . . .
"Carnival of Souls"!
It always happens the same way. First somebody makes a perfectly decent drive-in movie. Like "Carnival of Souls" was made in 1962 in Lawrence, Kansas. It was made for real people. Normal people. People who love zombies, ghosts, and dancing bloody corpses. But when they first put it out, nobody understands it. No, wait, lemme correct that. The people that go see it understand it. But the critics don't like it, and the theater owners don't like it, and the distribution company thinks, well, "it's kind of a strange movie." And the church doesn't like it, because it seems to be making fun of religious people. And so it just kinda dries up and peters out, and the original investors lose all their money, and then ten years later it turns up on the Late Late Late Show, and you're watching it and you say, "Hey, look, he ripped that off from George Romero in 'Night of the Living Dead.'" But then you see that the movie was made in 1962, five years before "Night of the Living Dead" existed. Bingo! Cult classic! All of a sudden people wanna know, "Who is this guy?"
And so then a bunch of guys start doing research, and they find out that "Carnival of Souls" was made by a guy named Herk Harvey, and this was the only feature film he ever made, and it stars a gal named Candace Hilligoss, and this was the only starring role she ever had. And then you find out that Brian de Palma stole a lot of the stuff he used in "Carrie" from "Carnival of Souls," and then the next thing you know--oh my God! no! not that!--the New York Times is writing about it! (Like the time Vincent Canby of the New York Slimes decided to review "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"--eleven years after it came out!)
And then somebody that works at a film museum decides to go back to Lawrence, Kansas, and find Herk Harvey and see if they can't get a perfect, mint-condition, 35-millimeter print of the movie, and then it gets its "World Re-Premiere" at a film festival somewhere. (In this case, the rediscoverer was Gordon K. Smith, and the festival was the USA Film Festival in Dallas.) And, before you know it, you've got 900 guys in suits paying $500 each to watch a movie that, in 1962, they would have forbidden their children from seeing. And, in fact, just last week, "Carnival of Souls" was shown in Lawrence, Kansas, for the first time in 27 years, as a benefit for the "Lawrence Film Commission." Herk Harvey was there. John Clifford, the writer, was there. All the original investors were there. And it was sponsored by the Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau!
Now. This is great, Herk. Hope you make some money out of the deal. But "Carnival of Souls" had its real premiere at the drive-in. And it will always be a drive-in movie, even though Panorama Entertainment is putting it out on video this winter. I'm sure there will be books written about it. Candace Hilligoss will get a bunch of movie offers. Maybe Herk will even make a sequel. But let's draw the line with this one. Let's not let Siskel and Eggbert and Leonard Maltin and the UCLA Department of Film claim this one for themselves. These are the same guys that call "I Spit On Your Grave" the most disgusting movie ever made. Why? It's not old enough yet. It hasn't been reviewed by the New York Slimes. It hasn't been shown at the USA Film Festival. For all the people who watched "Carnival of Souls" at the drive-ins of America and didn't need some Goonie Professor to tell em it was a great movie, let's reclaim this one for the good guys.
First of all, it's a zombie movie. It's not about "existential angst," "a bizarre concoction of Cold War idealism and paranoia," or "a symbolic parable." It's a zombie movie. In fact, the star of the movie, Candace Hilligoss, is the most beautiful zombie ever to appear in a zombie movie. The fun of the movie is that you're never really sure when she's being a zombie and when she's just being a ditzy stuffed-shirt church organist. (Think about it. Doesn't your church organist look like a zombie?)
Candace is the only survivor out of a car that gets run off a bridge during a game of "chicken," but once she gets out of the water she loses her desire for men, for beer, and for her own family. Normally these are character traits women are born with, but it takes a good dunk in the river for Candace to get them. Next thing we know, all she wants to do is play the church organ at all hours of the day and night, and poke around in this creepy abandoned amusement park where the zombies come every night to waltz. A doctor tries to tell her she's just having "a guilt feeling." The man who lives across the hall tells her she's "off her rocker." The preacher says she's "profane." Her landlady says "You just let your imagination run away with you." The guy at the gas station says she has "a transmission problem." And the zombies tell her "Come with us. Come and dance." What's a poor single girl in a strange town to do?
I'll just put it this way. She wears out quite a few pairs of high heels running to where she's got to go. If you saw the "Hitchhiker" segment of "The Twilight Zone" . . . this is where Rod stole it from.
No breasts (1962). Nineteen dead bodies. Approximately 15 zombies. One motor vehicle chase, with watery crash. Zombie bus tour. Church organ Fu. Zombie Fu. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Candace Hilligoss, for saying "I don't belong in the world" and "In the dark, your fantasies get so far out of hand"; Frances Feist, as the creepy old rooming house lady, for saying "You can take all the baths you want"; Art Ellison, as the minister, for saying "You cannot live in isolation from the human race, you know"; Sidney Berger, as the letch next door, for saying "You're gonna need me in the evening, you just don't know it yet"; and Herk Harvey, for producing, directing, and playing the Head Zombie.
In the Drive-In Hall of Fame. Four stars.
Joe Bob says check it out.
Quadruple Communist Alert! In the last four years, ALL of the drive-ins in the Quad-City area have closed. The Bel Air in East Moline, Ill., was closed to make more fairgrounds parking. The Memri in Moline was closed to make more parking for a communist hardtop. The Semri in Rock Island, Ill., was closed to make a housing subdivision for yuppies. And the Corral in Davenport, Ia., went bankrupt. Says S. "Scream" Burmahl of Moline, "I feel dirty." Remember, without eternal vigilance, it can happen here. To discuss the meaning of life with Joe Bob, or to get free junk and his world famous newsletter, write Joe Bob Briggs, P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, TX 75221. Joe Bob's Fax line is always open: 214-368-2310.
Joe Bob,
I'm a convict at the California Medical Facility. Recently a guard made me take my "Joe Bob Briggs For President" bumper sticker off my locker.
Is there a political significance to this action?
John Andrews
#C-39289
Vacaville, Calif.
Dear John:
My campaign manager, Stubby Winters, recently informed me that all our campaigning in American penal institutions resulted in very few votes last year and may have been responsible for my defeat. In 1992, we've decided to extend the campaign BEYOND the prisons and see if that works for me.
Stubby was
just doing his job.
Dear Joe Bob:
French products we can do without (now that you asked) . . .
Over-priced trendy La Madeleine bakeries who hire pseudo-froggie employees and display obnoxious cartoons about dumb Americans who can't pronounce the word "croissant" correctly.
All trendy, oh-so-svelte clothing at Limited Express stores where anything with the label "Compagnie Internationale" will cost you $50 even if it's some froggie-looking T-shirt that some dumb bimbo wore in Elle Magazine.
Elle Magazine. We don't care what's hot on the streets of Paris. We hate the streets of Paris. We're sick of hearing about the liposomes, niosomes, and noctosomes froggie women put on their faces. A flying baguette up the ---- would be more appropriate.
Next time let's send Mickey and Donald over armed with some nuclear warheads and see how many pieces of crudball frog bread we can overcook.
Anonymous
Dallas
Dear Anon:
They should spell it like you say it.
Dear Joe Bob,
I've got a question about an old movie I saw back in the late sixties. I can't remember the name of it or who was in it. I saw it as a double feature with "The Green Slime" (my favorite sci-fi costume epic). This movie was about a weird rich family that flew around in their own jumbo jet, kept their dead dad in the closet of whatever hotel they were staying at, fed cats (live ones) to their pet piranhas and had a son that dumped tons of ketsup on EVERYTHING he ate. What the hell did I watch? If you can help me, let me know.
Brent Forsyth
Salt Lake City
Dear Brent:
People thought they saw a LOT of stuff in the late sixties. It was the brownies, Brent.
If anybody thinks otherwise, let me know.
Joe Bob,
As you probably well know, we just had one helluva lot of geological fun out here in the land of bottled water, cellular phones, and . . . get this . . . politically correct drug-sniffing dogs! That's right. See enclosed article by Debra Levi Holtz from the San Francisco Chronicle:
"Berkeley Rejects Spaniel as Drug Dog": "The city of Berkeley has brushed off a drug-sniffing cocker spaniel from Southern California and will instead buy a local Labrador retriever to help sniff out crime. 'It's like buying a new car rather than a used car,' said Assistant City Manager Weldon Rucker. A 4-year-old would-be crime stopper named Stride was rejected because of his hefty $10,000 price tag and because he specializes in detecting powdered cocaine rather than the rock form prevalent in Berkeley, Rucker said. Besides, said Rucker, Stride was too attached to his current owner, Fred Kjorlien, of Orange County. . . . Berkeley officials searched months for a small, gentle dog that would provide 'a humanitarian approach' to the city's war on drugs. Large dogs usually associated with police work--such as German shepherds--were not politically acceptable to the City Council. The city is planning to buy a medium-sized Labrador retriever, trained specifically for the city's drug-fighting needs, for $5,000 from the Tyson Kennels in Redwood City. Berkeley officials said the local kennel will be convenient for the brush-up training the dog needs four times a year. The new politically correct pooch and a Berkeley police officer trained to handle the animal are expected to be on the streets by late January."
Of course, displaying an amazing Californian mentality, the city manager compares the acquisition to, what else . . . CARS! "It's like buying a new car rather than a used car." Well, I say cars are fairly useless around here lately and the analogy is fairly pointless. As for the ultimate usefulness of "politically correct" police dogs . . . well, go figure.
Michael Bumbeck
Oakland
Dear Mike:
I'm very familiar with the Labrador training going on in Berkeley. One thing the dog will do is IGNORE any drugs stashed only for personal use. The pooch is interested only in Mister Big.
Dear Joe Bob,
I like your stuff, but there's a lot of stuff I don't like. Johnny Carson, for example. How can I get Johnny C. to move his show so they could put someone funny in his slot--David Letterman, for example. I didn't suggest putting you in Carson's place 'cause I might get sick of Carson's replacement and I don't want that to happen to you.
Sincerely,
Steve Brick
El Paso
That's a very good idea. I'll make sure to avoid appearing in public for the rest of my life, and then nobody will ever get sick of me.
© 1989 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved