Fuck! Now I'm Scared of Carnivals.

I'll get this out of the way: this movie is amazing!
That being said, I have to say I'm very impressed with what is essentially an over sized "Twilight Zone" episode. First off, the ability of the director, considering the budget, is inspiring. It really gives hope to the average joe out there with dreams of making their own movie. I've been reading a lot lately on the workings of Hollywood, and the way money can wreck lots of good projects out there is pretty disheartening. This movie cheered me up in that respect. Second, this is one of the few films where I got a palpable sense of psychological development with the main character. I feel Mary's pain and fear at the accident, but the strange way life goes on anyways, requiring you to act like you can ever go back to the way you were. Mary decides to take a job in another town, where she can live as some else. But it is an understandable desire, because she is someone else. She is changed. She didn't even need to be dead to become solitary and distant. She just needed to be live through the experience.

I kind of see the director, Herk Harvey, as the Harper Lee of film. This guy comes out of left field, makes a revolutionary film, and them disappears (artistically speaking) off the face of the earth (maybe the ghouls got him too). What your left with is a work you love and a sad yearning that he had made more films.

The ghouls were chilling, in the same way the Dog mask man in "The Shining" is. They are unstoppable, sinister forces that will succeed. They are the inevitability of death.

The last bit I have is the complaints I have with the film. First, the funny/WTF moment where the priest is offended by Mary's music being satanic?! I want to know how the hell organ music can be satanic, and what she was playing sure as hell wasn't (I got the point anyways). Also, maybe I'm miss reading the movie, but it seems to criticize Mary for not getting with the sleazy next door neighbor. I found that offensive, but also perplexing since the movie is also clearly against the neighbor for the way he objectifies her (which I might say is done in a nice, kind of subtle way without being preachy).

I give it 9 out of 10.