Carnival of Souls

Made by an industrial-film director for around $33,000, and haunted. A woman walks away from a car crash and drifts through an eerie half-life, drawn to an abandoned lakeside pavilion and pursued by a pale ghoulish figure only she can see. The whole film has the logic of a dream you cannot escape.

Herk Harvey shot it in Kansas and Utah with a tiny crew, and the organ score and empty landscapes give it an atmosphere far beyond its means. It influenced everyone from Romero to Lynch.

Cheap, strange and quietly one of the great American horror films.