Carnival of Souls/Trivia


 * Creator Cameo: The Man is played by director Herk Harvey.
 * One-Book Author: Herk Harvey never directed another feature (although he did helm many educational shorts).
 * One-Hit Wonder: Herk Harvey's industrial short production company made only one narrative film, this one, and never did one again.
 * Playing Against Type: Comedian Larry Miller is the downright menacing Big Bad in the remake.
 * Vindicated by Cable: Joe Bob Briggs and other B-movie aficionados. The documentary Schlock! notes that had Carnival of Souls been a foreign film, it would have been hailed as a True Art Is Angsty masterpiece.
 * What Could Have Been:
 * Candace Hilligoss (who played Mary in the original) had been in talks to greenlight a sequel, and had even written a treatment and screenplay. For good or ill, the deal fell through. Her claim was that Peter Soby feigned an interest in her script just to get his foot in the door with Harvey and get the film rights to do a remake. In acquiring these rights, Hilligoss wound up being written out of the deal and Soby went on to produce the 1998 remake (which had nothing to do with Hilligoss's script).
 * Hilligoss was asked to make a cameo in the remake, but turned it down do to feelings of betrayal and disrespect due to the above reasons.
 * Along with a handful of other films, Carnival of Souls has the distinction of being riffed twice by Mike Nelson: First on the colorized DVD released by Legend Films, the second time with help from Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett on Riff Trax.