Buck Flower

But at the same time, in my brain, I guess he was such a big star, it's hard to think of him as a character actor.

He's always associated with people like Buck Flowers.

Yeah, that's true.

So I don't know.

The French, always ahead of the cinema curve, considered Carpenter one of the great auteurs of cinema, even back then, and to look at a Carpenter film, you can immediately tell who is behind the camera, the same as you can with a Spielberg, Scorsese, or Lynch.

His stately widescreen compositions, distinctive synth-heavy scores, and a repertory company of familiar faces from Kurt Russell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Adrienne Barbeau, and Donald Pleasence to character actors like Peter Jason, Nancy Loomis, and the incomparable George Buck Flower.

Carpenter's characters likewise perform an impressive feat of feeling like actual people, not archetypes.

People who drink, who smoke, who curse, who don't follow the rules, people who don't observe and comment on what they are facing with postmodern ironic detachment.

Ugh.

Him and Buck Flower.

All right.

Well, occasionally we do like to talk about things other than the movie or Resident Evil.

He briefly appears as a pizza delivery boy.

And you've also got character actor Buck Flower who plays, I believe the character's name is Norville.

And he's like a police type character.

You might know Buck Flower from, he plays the homeless guy in Back to the Future.

You know, the guy sitting on the bench.

And he's also in at least one John Carpenter movie.

You know, the the one where the the aliens are taking over the world and oh they live there we go i forgot the name of the movie they live i can't believe it but there we go i just remembered it anyway buck flower is also in they live and of course a number of other films i guess it was even in some smut films uh thankfully not as one of the actors in the let's just say dirty scenes but uh I've looked him up on IMDb, and sure enough, he was in some adult movies, weirdly enough, as like, I guess, some side character or something.

So that's a little bit of trivia for you if you really want to know how deep the adult cinema rabbit hole goes.

We have Vern, who...

Vern is played by George Buck Flower, who we also know from Cheerleader Camp, from Back to the Future, from Puppet Master movies, Waxwork 2, Boogeyman, Vampire Club 4.

Not sure why you mentioned that one.

That sounds-

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, I forgot to even mention Buck Flower was in Village of the Damned as the drunk janitor who the kids kill.

He's fun.

He was...

If you're a fan of black and white horror, French new wave, surrealism, or even the dark spooky visions of Igmar Bergman or David Lynch, I think you'll find a lot to love about Carnival of Souls.

It's the only feature film produced, directed, and co-written by a writer and actor named Herc Harvey, and was filmed on location in three weeks in Lawrence, Kansas, in Salt Lake City, Utah, as a low-budget indie production.

It stars an actress named Candace Hillegoss in her only major film role, playing Mary Henry, a young woman whose life is disturbed after a car accident.

She relocates to a new city, has a hard time fitting in with the locals, and becomes drawn to the pavilion of an abandoned carnival.

As the film progresses, Mary grows more paranoid, and it starts to become unclear what is real and what is not.

Throughout the film, Mary is haunted by a strange, ghoulish figure, played by the director himself, mainly because he couldn't afford another actor, and he didn't have to memorize any lines.

After its quick guerrilla-style production, Carnival of Souls premiered in Lawrence, Kansas in 1962 and was then largely forgotten by critics or nationwide audiences until festivals, late-night TV airings, and Halloween screenings helped it develop a cult following over the coming decades.

The film is set to an organ score by Gene Moore, which adds a lot to the creepy vibe and gives it a foreboding sense of dread.

Seriously, those eyes are practically special effects all by themselves.

The supporting cast includes familiar character actors, such as, from left to right, Peter Jason, George Buck Flowers, and Cy Richardson.

Now, let's talk about the budget and box office.

This is where things get interesting.