NIGHT OF THE DEMON
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Sound format: Mono
(Black and white)
A skeptical American psychologist (Dana Andrews) travels to London to expose a sorcerer (Niall MacGinnis) who curses him to die at the hands of a fantastic demon...
Directed by Val Lewton's protegé Jacques Tourneur (CAT PEOPLE, I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE), and written by frequent Hitchcock dramatist Charles Bennett (YOUNG AND INNOCENT, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT), NIGHT OF THE DEMON - based on the story 'Casting the Runes' by M.R. James - is an A-grade shocker (on a B-grade budget) which challenges unreasoning attitudes towards the supernatural by believers and skeptics alike. Andrews plays the blinkered American cynic - cast adrift in a foreign country - who refuses to believe the demonic threat made against his life, despite all evidence to the contrary, though Bennett's script makes it clear that the movie's central 'villain' (a powerful and charismatic performance by scene-stealer MacGinnis) is motivated by fear of the powers at his command.
Tourneur and Bennett were contemptuous of the alterations imposed during post-production by producer Hal E. Chester, who re-edited the picture for its 1958 US release (pointlessly retitled CURSE OF THE DEMON) and added a monstrous demon to all existing prints on both sides of the Atlantic. Despite the reservations of fans and filmmakers alike, this fearsome-looking creature - which makes a brief appearance at the beginning and end of the movie - generates an authentic jolt of cinematic horror in a film which otherwise prides itself on visual ambiguity. Bennett's script foregrounds the human drama, and Tourneur's first-rate cast - including Athene Seyler (THE QUEEN OF SPADES) as MacGinnis' frightened mother, and Reginald Beckwith (NIGHT OF THE EAGLE) as a dotty psychic - plays it completely straight throughout. There's at least half a dozen powerful set-pieces, including Maurice Denham's terrifying encounter with the eponymous beast in the opening scenes, Andrews' confrontation with MacGinnis during a children's birthday party, and an episode in which Andrews is followed through the deep, dark woods by an unearthly, invisible... THING (I'll say no more). Ted Scaife's atmospheric black and white cinematography makes a virtue of the bleak English landscape, and veteran technicians George Blackwell and Wally Veevers contribute some brief but memorable special effects. The final sequence - set within the claustrophobic confines of a late night train, as the hour of Andrews' death approaches - is a small masterpiece of nail-biting suspense.
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Sound format: Mono
(Black and white)
A skeptical American psychologist (Dana Andrews) travels to London to expose a sorcerer (Niall MacGinnis) who curses him to die at the hands of a fantastic demon...
Directed by Val Lewton's protegé Jacques Tourneur (CAT PEOPLE, I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE), and written by frequent Hitchcock dramatist Charles Bennett (YOUNG AND INNOCENT, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT), NIGHT OF THE DEMON - based on the story 'Casting the Runes' by M.R. James - is an A-grade shocker (on a B-grade budget) which challenges unreasoning attitudes towards the supernatural by believers and skeptics alike. Andrews plays the blinkered American cynic - cast adrift in a foreign country - who refuses to believe the demonic threat made against his life, despite all evidence to the contrary, though Bennett's script makes it clear that the movie's central 'villain' (a powerful and charismatic performance by scene-stealer MacGinnis) is motivated by fear of the powers at his command.
Tourneur and Bennett were contemptuous of the alterations imposed during post-production by producer Hal E. Chester, who re-edited the picture for its 1958 US release (pointlessly retitled CURSE OF THE DEMON) and added a monstrous demon to all existing prints on both sides of the Atlantic. Despite the reservations of fans and filmmakers alike, this fearsome-looking creature - which makes a brief appearance at the beginning and end of the movie - generates an authentic jolt of cinematic horror in a film which otherwise prides itself on visual ambiguity. Bennett's script foregrounds the human drama, and Tourneur's first-rate cast - including Athene Seyler (THE QUEEN OF SPADES) as MacGinnis' frightened mother, and Reginald Beckwith (NIGHT OF THE EAGLE) as a dotty psychic - plays it completely straight throughout. There's at least half a dozen powerful set-pieces, including Maurice Denham's terrifying encounter with the eponymous beast in the opening scenes, Andrews' confrontation with MacGinnis during a children's birthday party, and an episode in which Andrews is followed through the deep, dark woods by an unearthly, invisible... THING (I'll say no more). Ted Scaife's atmospheric black and white cinematography makes a virtue of the bleak English landscape, and veteran technicians George Blackwell and Wally Veevers contribute some brief but memorable special effects. The final sequence - set within the claustrophobic confines of a late night train, as the hour of Andrews' death approaches - is a small masterpiece of nail-biting suspense.