A Carnival Nobody Wanted Tickets For
Some remakes ask a question: Can lightning strike twice? Adam Grossman’s Carnival of Souls (1998) instead asks, What if we got hit by a flashlight battery instead? Slapped with the misleading “Wes Craven Presents” label, this movie carries all the cachet of a gas station hot dog “presented by Gordon Ramsay.” It’s not Wes’s vision. It’s not Wes’s hand. At best, it’s Wes’s ghost shrugging in the background while cashing a producer check.
From Cult Classic to Cold Leftovers
The 1962 original was a haunting indie gem, dripping with atmosphere and existential dread. The 1998 version trades that in for a sweaty carnival clown, dream sequences that multiply like rabbits on caffeine, and a story so confused you’ll wonder if the projector ate the script. What was once an eerie meditation on alienation is now a Lifetime melodrama with jump scares that wouldn’t spook a toddler hopped up on Pixy Stix.
Plot by Mad Libs
We begin in 1977, where young Alex witnesses her mom’s murder at the hands of Louis Seagram—a carnival clown with the subtlety of John Wayne Gacy auditioning for Sesame Street. Fast forward twenty years, and Alex (played by Bobbie Phillips) tends bar in a seaside joint while still haunted by her childhood trauma. Soon Seagram’s back—or maybe not, or maybe it’s her imagination, or maybe it’s a dream within a dream. The movie keeps yanking us between realities like it’s auditioning for Inception: The Trailer Park Edition.
The Star of the Show: Bobbie Phillips
Let’s get one thing out of the way—Bobbie Phillips is hot. This movie knows it. The camera knows it. The director definitely knew it. Every scene lingers on her like the lens is writing a love letter. And while she’s magnetic, her performance is chained to dialogue that sounds like it was written by a committee of interns whose only horror experience was watching Are You Afraid of the Dark? Her Alex spends most of the movie wide-eyed, sweaty, and trapped in endless nightmares. It’s less character development and more anxiety cosplay.
Clowns, Corpses, and Confusion
The film’s central boogeyman, Seagram, is a carnival clown who should terrify by default, but here he just looks like a middle-aged guy banned from Chuck E. Cheese. He pops up, disappears, gets killed, comes back, mutates into a lover, morphs into dream sequences—it’s like watching an improv troupe rehearse with clown greasepaint and a bottle of NyQuil. The climax reveals Alex really did die in that watery car crash, leaving us to realize we’ve been dragged through a funhouse mirror of nonsense for nothing.
Production Woes on Display
This movie feels like it was assembled from scraps in a studio dumpster. Shot in ’97, reshot by Anthony Hickox, and finally pushed out with Craven’s name, the result is as cohesive as a ransom note. Editing is jumpy, pacing is sluggish, and the tone lurches between erotic thriller, ghost story, and Scooby-Doo rerun. The carnival sequences should drip with surreal menace, but instead they look like a Six Flags commercial with bad lighting.
Supporting Cast in a Haunted Sideshow
Shawnee Smith, future Saw star, plays Alex’s sister Sandra and mostly exists to sigh and say “Alex, you’re not well” on repeat. Larry Miller chews scenery as Seagram, though his attempts at menace land somewhere between “drunk uncle at Thanksgiving” and “regional theater Pennywise.” Paul Johansson tries his hand as Michael, a love interest who doubles as a supernatural shape-shifter. The result? A character arc that makes about as much sense as the plot of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.
The Real Horror: Missed Potential
What hurts most is the shadow of what could’ve been. Candace Hilligoss, the original’s star, had written a true sequel script, but Hollywood ignored it in favor of this cash-in reimagining. Instead of honoring the source’s mood and ambiguity, we get CGI nightmare sequences, bad clown makeup, and the kind of “twist” ending that makes you wish your VCR would eat the tape.
Why This Carnival Should Have Stayed Closed
At the end of the day, this isn’t a remake—it’s a hostage situation. The audience is the hostage, the ransom is ninety minutes, and the payoff is Bobbie Phillips being the only redeemable aspect. She’s gorgeous, magnetic, and deserved so much better than this. It’s like casting a gourmet chef to work in a cafeteria that only serves powdered mashed potatoes.
Final Call at the Mermaid Bar
Carnival of Souls (1998) is the cinematic equivalent of a carnival corn dog left under a heat lamp for twelve hours: greasy, soggy, and not worth the stomachache. It’s bad horror, bad storytelling, and bad business—saved only by Bobbie Phillips’ screen presence. If you’re looking for chills, revisit the 1962 original. If you’re looking for Bobbie, sure, sit through this disaster. Just don’t expect to leave the tent with your sanity intact.
