Review: "Night of the Demon"

 

Tourneur, Jacques (Dir.), “The Night of the Demon” (1957), Sabre Film Productions, Columbia Pictures

 

“It has been written since the beginning of time, even unto these ancient stones, that evil supernatural creatures exist in a world of darkness. And it is also said man using the magic power of the ancient runic symbols can call forth these powers of darkness, the demons of Hell...”

I really like moments when things come together. Like when a nexus of various bits of disassociated information suddenly converge and everything makes sense. For example, I used to wonder why the game of “Ludo” was called that: I thought for a long time that it was some kind of acronym. When I discovered accidentally that the word is actually Latin for ‘fun’ I had an epiphany moment. After spotting this DVD on the shelf at work I took it home for some evening viewing (research – it’s a perk of the job); I put it on and suddenly, it was epiphany-time again.

There’s a line in the title song for the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” that goes:

“Dana Andrews said prunes gave him the runes,

And passing them used lots of skills...”

To be honest, this lyric never made much sense to me other than the fact that, obviously, it was reference to a B-grade sci-fi flick. Suddenly, I realised I was watching that very film! Hard on the heels of that revelation was the understanding that this movie was based on the excellent Montague Rhodes (M.R.) James short story “Casting the Runes”. Double whammy! But there was more:

One scene of the film enacts a séance in which Mr Meeks the medium contacts the Other Side to try and prove to Dana Andrews’ stiff-necked character that demons really are coming to get him in the next couple of days. I was enjoying the spiritualist vibe when a stray line of dialogue brought me up short. I rewound it several times until I caught the throwaway line (“It’s in the trees! It’s coming!”) then racked my brain to try and work out why it was so familiar: turns out, this snippet of dialogue was sampled in 1985 by Kate Bush on her album “The Hounds of Love”. So: triple whammy! I was liking this flick!

 

Of course, there’re things to dislike about it too. Whoever was in charge of dressing Dana Andrews obviously had no idea how to fit a suit: he looks like he’s walking around in a potato sack for most of the film. Peggy Cummins was obviously told that, when standing still she had to adopt a particular pose, and this somehow makes her look more than normally like some kind of animate Blythe Doll. And the stated fact that her character undertook advanced studies in Psychology in order to become a better kindergarten teacher rings a little hollow. The chemistry between these two is fairly non-existent: I read that Cummins, hearing the alarming tales of Andrews’ alcoholic spiralling at the time, thought twice before accepting the role, but decided to bite the bullet and ride his coattails to some kind of notoriety. Unfortunately, it shows.

 

But these are small things, taken all in all. I did some research afterwards and read through some fairly rabid decrying of the quality of the special effects (which really aren’t that bad); the glaring continuity errors (that aren’t really as awful as they make out); and the foaming outrage at the notion that the movie dares to suggest that the stones of Stonehenge have carvings on them (seriously people: take a chill-pill). It’s just a story; a particularly good story by one of England’s greatest ghost story writers, but nevertheless, just a story.

The sets and scene-dressing for the film are executed by Ken Adams, the maestro of the Bond films franchise, known for his soaring sets with strong horizontals, shot from low angles: you all remember Dr No’s hidden island base. This is early days for him but the emerging style is evident: the creepy hotel hallways scene, wherein all the vanishing perspectives of the endless corridors seem to be moving slightly in the distance, is very claustrophobic and disturbing.

Of course, they take liberties in re-imagining the story for the silver screen but on the whole it works really well. Andrews meets some deliciously xenophobic cultists who raise the threat level dramatically; there’s a dynamite scene where a catatonic cultist is revived through hypnosis to reveal how the curse is transmitted before hurling himself through a high-level window; and there are some shadowy Scotland Yard fellows who we’re never quite sure about – are they good guys or not? The result is more than a little noir-ish.

Apparently, French director Tourneur wanted the demon to remain off-screen, at most a shadowy presence with some alarming footprints being left by an invisible being. He was shouted down by the overly-enthusiastic producer however, and the demon appears at the beginning and end of the movie as a ferociously realised entity. Of course, this manifestation is limited by the technology of the day but it’s not that bad, and certainly nowhere near as awful as some other reviewers out there would have us think. On balance, I think the film would have been better if the demon didn’t appear, but I’m happy either way.

I had a little trouble with the antagonist Karswell (Niall McGinnis) at first. Given that this is a ‘50s film and shot in England, everyone is very formal and polite all of the time: despite dooming people to being torn to pieces by a creature from Hell, everyone involved is very proper and stiff-upper-lippy about it:

“I say, Karswell: this curse business is a bit rum. How’s about you remove the bally thing, what?

“Sorry old bean – can’t do. These things are dashed easy to kick off but jolly hard to shut down.”

“Hmm. ‘Don’t suppose you could push back the deadline ‘til after Ascot?”

“Terribly sorry old chap: hard cheese.”

“Rather!”

If this was a Tarantino film, I’m sure the dialogue would have been a bit punchier. Still. It’s neither here nor there – the movie is a product of its time and I can live with it. It’s the way Karswell is so gosh-darned friendly all of the time, that weirds me out: he holds garden parties for local kiddies; he’s kind to his mother; he invites his victims into his house and swaps banter with them when they break in after hours. Maybe I’m too tuned into the Lovecraft side of things, but I was expecting a much greater atmosphere of menace about this character, more at least than just a dinky little goatee beard could provide.

 

Talking Lovecraft, there’s a constant reference in the film to a mouldy old tome. Karswell has a copy of an ancient text named “The True Discoveries of Witches and Demons” and it is from this source that most of his power derives. In the film, this book is represented as a nice, thick, folio volume, perched atop a truncated pillar in Karswell’s morning parlour. Close inspection reveals it to be a copy of Barrett’s The Magus (or coined from that source, at least) and I give them kudos for using an actual grimoire as a stand-in. Of course, if witches are key villains in your roleplaying scenarios, this tome could be easily adapted as a nexus of mayhem in your universe.

That being said, there’s extra value (and another epiphany-moment for me!) in terms of gaming: the device of the written incantation passed to the victim in order to curse them, and of getting the caster to receive them back in order to break that curse, is a solid gimmick to base a story around, not only for a short story or movie. Towards the end of the film I was getting some tickles of memory and I suddenly recalled that this concept had in fact been set into a Call of Cthulhu frame previously. Games Workshop released a British roleplaying supplement for CoC in the early ‘80s called Green and Pleasant Land; it’s awfully hard to find these days, but it contains a scenario built along these lines, with a Hunting Horror as the curse effect, rather than Satan himself. It’s a nice little take on James’ tale and easily put before a gaming group over an evening of play.

The movie was released in England in 1957 and did good business; when it was sent to the US the next year, it was issued as a double feature along with “The Curse of Frankenstein” and re-named “The Curse of the Demon” to create some thematic cohesion. As well, the movie length was trimmed and several scenes were swapped about: the disc I watched had both versions and this seems to be standard with most of the current DVD releases of this film. I watched both versions and there’s not a lot to choose between them, which makes me wonder if the alterations were entirely necessary.

What makes this movie stand out, even more than the excellent scripting, is the fact that the hero is pretty much thoroughly unlikable and the villain overly charismatic, with The Girl forming a wooden barrier between them (that’s a comment on her acting, by the way). Because our expectations are thus overturned, the film has an edginess about it that keeps us wary about what else won’t work the way we want it to. Even the potential romance is stillborn, although how much of that was the director and how much was the actors we’ll probably never know. Tourneur and Andrews went on to make other movies together (eg. “The Fearmakers”), but I’ve not heard much about them.

On balance, I readily recommend this movie; after all, it’s basically an M.R. James vehicle so you know it’s going to be good. The atmosphere generated is genuinely unnerving and the story compelling with many colourful second- and third-string characters to push the action along.

I’m giving it 3 tentacled horrors.