"Night of the Demon", altered slightly and released in the US as "Curse of the Demon", I find to be a fascinating and influential horror work for any number of reasons. The central character, Dr, Holden, is a man who has devoted his life to disproving supernatural claims, and also of ignoring them. He arrives in England for a conference at which he and a colleague, Dr. Harrington, are to expose one Julian Carswell. But Harrington is killed, under mysterious circumstances, the night before Holden's plane--carrying him and the dead man's niece, Joanna, even lands. The remainder of this tense and well-paced film I find to be a drawn out contest of wills, rhetoric, actions and claims between Holden and Carswell, and also between Holden and everyone else he meets--who, to a man, are believers in supernatural powers, particularly demons in this case. The powerful plot therefore pits Holden--as a man sentenced to die on Oct. 28th by Carswell--as a defender of rationalism against everyone else (with the exception of some police officers introduced late) who are superstitionists. But in this case--though his purpose is categorically right--for as he says, life would be insupportable if he weren't--he is specifically wrong. We have seen the demon murder Professor Harrington; and we know he too will die as predicted if he cannot bring himself to believe that he has been marked for death. Holden is well-played as usual by Dana Andrews, whose arguments with Joanne as played by Peggy Cummins I find to be acerbic, tinged with hints of mutual attraction and memorable. Some have found Holden to have been undercut as an "Establishment' type by the plot device of making this a horror film with a real horror; but since the believers in the piece are doctors, teachers, a medium, farmers and locals, there cannot have been any such intention by the author on a "class level". The film was written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester from a story by Montague R. James. The production was directed with fluid skill and considerable tension by Jacques Tourneur. Ken Adam's production design in B/W is spare, in some places, rich in others. Use is also made of atmospheric music composed by Clifton Parker, good special effects and such design elements as cars driving at night around curves through wooded areas, curved elements in sets and set pieces, special effects, eerie clown makeup, masks, major locales and rich rooms and also bland rooms to achieve a surprisingly unified effect composed of shadows, emptinesses and elements of darkness, strong architectural features and swift movements that create effective contexted fright. The production design by Ken Adam deserves praise as much for what it avoids as what it utilizes; and the cinematography by Ted Scaife is also noteworthy, I suggest, in its sinister feel. A piece of this sort also must depend for its believability predominantly on the actors. With solid work by fine actor Andrews and Cummins' attractive liveliness as his basis, the director here has added a professional villain in Niall MacGinnis, an interesting mother of a villain in Athene Seyler, believable professors in Liam Redmond, Maurice Denham and Peter Elliott. Reginald Beckwith and Rosamund Greenwood score effectively as a medium and his wife, the Meeks, with others in the cast including Lynn Tracy, Ewan Roberts, Brian Wilde, John Salew, Charles Lloyd-Pack, Janet Barrow and more contributing to the piece's believability. Frank Bevis and Hal E. Chester produced this fine effort. The linkage of Stonehenge, runic symbols, the calling up of demonic powers, cultists, death sentences, flying demons and more tend to overload the supernatural side of the argument between Holden and Carswell. The practical solution to save his life devised by Holden aside, this is as good a horror film perhaps as one can make, with its arguments set counter to its content of super-metaphysical mayhem. The monster is more eerie as a pursuing cloud, one later used on several TV sci-fi shows, and when it is causing Holden to feel cold, than when it takes the form of a flaming demonic gargoyle. Whatever Tourneur's personal beliefs, one can say that by clever understatement, intelligent pacing, and a daring use of traditional, classic and symbolic shapes, elements, juxtapositions and shocking surprises, the director has brought out of this simple plot of demonic threat and deadline about all he or anyone could.
Review of Curse of the Demon
Curse of the Demon
(1957)
About as Good as a Horror Film Can Be, Thanks to Jacques Tourneur
3 November 2007