Carnival of Souls was filmed in Lawrence, KS, LeCompton, KS, Salt Lake City, UT, and at the abandoned Saltair Amusement Park Pavilion at Great Salt Lake, UT.
       The story was inspired by an early 1961 television episode of The Twilight Zone (2 Oct 1959 – 19 Jun 1964) called “The Hitch-Hiker,” starring Inger Stevens.
       Producer-director Herk Harvey told the 19 Apr 1990 LAT that the film cost $30,000. To stay within the budget, he played the lead ghoul, or “The Strange Man,” although he did not include his name in the cast. He also rented the Saltair, an abandoned, turn-of-the-century Great Salt Lake, UT, pavilion, for $50, and for a scene in a department store, he paid a saleslady $25 to act as if she did not see the Candace Hilligoss character, “Mary Henry.” Harvey said he shot the film without permits on the streets of Salt Lake City and Lawrence. The bridge where the car accident took place was in LeCompton, KS. The film’s only professional actor was Hilligoss, a veteran of New York City’s famed Actors Studio. Co-star Sidney Berger taught drama at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.
       Carnival of Souls was Herk Harvey’s only feature film.
       The 3 Oct 1962 Var reported that the film premiered at the Granada Theatre in Lawrence on 26 Sep 1962. A review in the same issue predicted the low-budget film “will find itself at home on a dual bill, especially for sub-billing drive-ins.” However, after playing on the drive-in circuit with The Devil’s Messenger (1962, see entry), the film, more eerie than scary, gradually found an audience on late-night television. The 15 Sep 1997 Var noted that director George Romero cited Carnival of Souls as the inspiration for Night of the Living Dead (1968, see entry). After Harvey regained ownership of the film, he introduced it at several film festivals, beginning in Toronto, Canada, and New York City, according to the 23 Feb 1990 St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In a belated review, the 20 Apr 1990 LAT called the film “genuinely creepy.” After Harvey’s death in 1996, Peter Soby and Matthew Irvine of Chicago West Entertainment bought the original negative of the film, along with a handful of surviving prints and outtakes, from scriptwriter and co-creator John Clifford, the 8 Jan 1997 DV noted. As befitting what had become a cult classic, Carnival of Souls was packaged for DVD by Criterion Collection, with both the theatrical version and director’s cut included. The following year, the film was remade as Wes Craven Presents ‘Carnival of Souls,’ but very little of the original story was used, and reviews were negative.