Carnival of Souls

2014

Director | binaural audio play

Script adapted by Len Horsey
Music and sound design by Euan Rodger
Produced by Sally Folkard

Cornerhouse, Manchester / Winter Gardens, Blackpool

Commissioned by BFI Film Hub North West Central

Starring: Matt Aistrup, Baby Dee, Henrietta Fusi, Amanda Hennessy, Len Horsey, Kate McCabe and Daniel Wallace.

A new, unique adaptation of director Herk Harvey’s 1962 experimental feature film and horror oddity, cited as a key influence upon the work of George A Romero and David Lynch. Inspired by classic adventure radio serials and sensory deprivation methods, Carnival of Souls has been stripped and chiselled to become an audio-only experience within a darkened cinema – with a twist.

Commissioned by the Film Hub North West Central with an advisory group of blind and partially sighted audience members, the broadcast takes place in a darkened cinema relayed across wireless headsets incorporating binaural audio recording: a technique that creates the effect of the action happening to and around the body of the listener, creating the effect of an intimate sense of proximity.

All direct imagery and projection is absent, but for that which forms in the imagination of each participant.

Mary Henry (Amanda Hennessy) is the sole survivor of a horrific car accident. She begins a new life in a sleepy Utah town, the site of a derelict carnival and dancehall.  Haunted by the sight and songs of an enigmatic figure that slips inside her dreams (Baby Dee), Mary finds herself drawn to the ruins of the former pleasure ground… about which the local Mormon congregation know more than they choose to reveal.

Featuring Baby Dee, who has collaborated with Anohni, Marc Almond, Will Oldham, Andrew W. K and Matt Sweeney.