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terryfrost at 09:34pm on 29/12/2006 under movies
terryfrost at 09:34pm on 29/12/2006 under moviesNight of the Demon
Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Nial MacGinnis
Based on Casting The Runes by M. R. James
Directed by Jacques Tourneur.
Dr. Julian Karswell: Do I believe in witchcraft? What kind of witchcraft? The legendary witch that rides on the imaginary broom? The hex that tortures the thoughts of the victim? The pin stuck in the image that wastes away the mind and the body?
Dr. John Holden: Also imaginary.
Dr. Julian Karswell: But where does imagination end and reality begin? What is this twilight, this half world of the mind that you profess to know so much about? How can we differentiate between the powers of darkness and the powers of the mind?
This movie begins with daylight shots of Stonehenge as a stentorious voice tells us that the builders of the monument understood the nature of good and evil and that certain symbols could conjure evil.
Professor Harrington (Maurice Denham) makes a hurried night-time car trip to Lufford Hall, the home of an Aleister Crowley-like sorcerer called Julian Karswell. Upon arriving, he begs Karswell to lift a curse, even offering a recantation of his public utterances that have brought some notoriety to Karswell and his followers. While urbanely playing with a deck of cards, Karswell responds with, "You said do your worst and that's precisely what I did."
He sends Harrington home with a promise to do all he can, but as Harrington locks his garage at home, he's attacked by a smoking winged 'fire demon' the size of a two storey building. At home Karswell burns a newspaper with a headline reading "Karswell Devil Cult Expose Promised at Scientists' Convention". The sorcerer had given Harrington a parchment with runic symbols on it: a magical death sentence.
Doctor John Holden (Dana Andrews), an eminent American psychologist and skeptic flies from the USA to London for the Convention. He finds that Harrington is dead and the only witness to any of Karswell's cult activities is a catatonic farmer called Rand Hobart. Holden receives a threatening call from Karswell, suggesting that he butts out. The next day, in the British Museum library where he is researching black magic, Holden bumps into Karswell. The sorcerer offers him the use of a rare tome on magic and invites him to Lufford Hall. While picking up a dropped file, Karswell slips a parchment with runes on it into the file.
Professor Harrington's niece, Joanna (Peggy Cummins) meets Holden and suggests that he drop the investigation. She has her uncle's diary and they discover that Harrington himself had been slipped a parchment by Karswell at a concert in Albert Hall. Holden, the rationalist, smugly explains away the coincidence. He and Joanna visit Lufford Hall where Karswell, in a tramp costume and clown makeup is performing magic tricks for the local children at his annual Halloween party. Karswell confesses to having once made his living as a stage magician. He and Holden come upon two children playing a board game:
Karswell: Ha ha, snakes and ladders. An English game, you wouldn't know it. You see, if you land at the foot of the ladder you climb all the way to the top. But if you land on the head of the snake, you slide all the way down again. Funny thing, I always preferred sliding down the snakes to climbing up the ladders. You're a doctor of psychology, you ought to know the answer to that.
Holden: Maybe you're a good loser.
Karswell: I'm not, you know. Not a bit of it.
To prove his point, Karswell, with but a moment's concentration, conjures a fierce windstorm. The clown-magician has become the powerful wizard showing off. He sends chairs and children scattering to the four winds. Inside the house, Karswell predicts that Holden will die three days hence, at 10 pm. He does so in a matter of fact way, as if giving the time of a train's arrival.
After Holden and Joanna leave there is this exchange between Karswell and his mother:
Karswell: Listen, mother. You believe in the supernatural. I've shown you some of its power and some of its danger.
Mrs. Karswell:Yes, Julian.
Karswell: Well, believe this also. You get nothing for nothing. This house, the land, the way we live. Nothing for nothing. My followers who pay for this do it out of fear. And I do what I do out of fear also. It's part of the price.
Mrs. Karswell: But if it makes you unhappy. Stop it. Give it back.
Karswell:How can you give back life? I can't stop it. I can't give it back. I can't let anyone destroy this thing. I must protect myself. Because if it's not someone else's life, it'll be mine. Do you understand, mother? It'll be mine.
So the villain is as much trapped by the demonic forces as any of his victims.
Holden is a skeptic, but to his own detriment. Even when evidence manifests itself, he stays true to his rationalism until there is nowhere else to go except to accept a different kind of logic -- that the rune is a death warrant and that he needs to be smarter than Karswell to avoid being ripped apart, and must pass the runes back to the sorcerer without his knowledge.
During a break-in at Lufford Hall, Holden encounters a "minor demon", Karswell's cat Graymalkin. This is a classic piece of Tourneur movie making. A cat transforms into a leopard and it's all done with subtle editing, perfect lighting and suggestion.
Jacques Tourneur was a master of black and white movie suspenser. Suggestion, sound effects, surprises and misdirection are familiar tools that he used as a master craftsman of horror. Working on small budgets for RKO in the 40s with producer Val Lewton, he created Cat People and I Walked With A Zombie, two of the best horror films of that, or any subsequent decade. Later that decade, he directed Out of the Past, a classic film noir starring Robert Mitchum.
These days, movie-makers network banks of PCs to create their monsters. In lieu of thse easier to use tools, Tourneur harnessed the imaginations of the audience to the same effect. Suggest rather than show, imply rather than state, a moving shadow is scarier than a clearly seen threat. Anyone making a horror movie would be served well by studying Tourneur's use of camera angles and elevations, too . Tourneur had the skill of drawing the audience into the world of his movies. His way of doing this was by making that world an interesting place, populated by people doing interesting things. When Holden visits Stonehenge and finds the runes on his paper inscribed on the stones, there's an iconic feeling to it. Here is a modern man of science threatened by the looming, powerful mysteries of a past age.
In this film, created over a decade after Tourneur's RKO days and on another continent, his skills are undiminished. The demon itself, which the studio insisted be shown, is somewhat puppet-like but for me, it doesn't spoil the film. Dana Andrews, never a subtle actor, has the staunchness needed for Holden's pragmatism, but it's Niall MacGinnis who steals the show. His Karswell is softly spoken, a stocky, balding man who possesses and is possessed by, immense power. He's oddly likeable and charismatic. MacGinnis would have made a good Albus Dumbledore. He had that gift of sounding both avuncular and menacing simultaneously.
On the DVD of Night of the Demon you also get the truncated US release of the film, titled Curse of the Demon. For me, the longer one is the better. You can never get enough Jacques Tourneur.
Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Nial MacGinnis
Based on Casting The Runes by M. R. James
Directed by Jacques Tourneur.
Dr. Julian Karswell: Do I believe in witchcraft? What kind of witchcraft? The legendary witch that rides on the imaginary broom? The hex that tortures the thoughts of the victim? The pin stuck in the image that wastes away the mind and the body?
Dr. John Holden: Also imaginary.
Dr. Julian Karswell: But where does imagination end and reality begin? What is this twilight, this half world of the mind that you profess to know so much about? How can we differentiate between the powers of darkness and the powers of the mind?
This movie begins with daylight shots of Stonehenge as a stentorious voice tells us that the builders of the monument understood the nature of good and evil and that certain symbols could conjure evil.
Professor Harrington (Maurice Denham) makes a hurried night-time car trip to Lufford Hall, the home of an Aleister Crowley-like sorcerer called Julian Karswell. Upon arriving, he begs Karswell to lift a curse, even offering a recantation of his public utterances that have brought some notoriety to Karswell and his followers. While urbanely playing with a deck of cards, Karswell responds with, "You said do your worst and that's precisely what I did."
He sends Harrington home with a promise to do all he can, but as Harrington locks his garage at home, he's attacked by a smoking winged 'fire demon' the size of a two storey building. At home Karswell burns a newspaper with a headline reading "Karswell Devil Cult Expose Promised at Scientists' Convention". The sorcerer had given Harrington a parchment with runic symbols on it: a magical death sentence.
Doctor John Holden (Dana Andrews), an eminent American psychologist and skeptic flies from the USA to London for the Convention. He finds that Harrington is dead and the only witness to any of Karswell's cult activities is a catatonic farmer called Rand Hobart. Holden receives a threatening call from Karswell, suggesting that he butts out. The next day, in the British Museum library where he is researching black magic, Holden bumps into Karswell. The sorcerer offers him the use of a rare tome on magic and invites him to Lufford Hall. While picking up a dropped file, Karswell slips a parchment with runes on it into the file.
Professor Harrington's niece, Joanna (Peggy Cummins) meets Holden and suggests that he drop the investigation. She has her uncle's diary and they discover that Harrington himself had been slipped a parchment by Karswell at a concert in Albert Hall. Holden, the rationalist, smugly explains away the coincidence. He and Joanna visit Lufford Hall where Karswell, in a tramp costume and clown makeup is performing magic tricks for the local children at his annual Halloween party. Karswell confesses to having once made his living as a stage magician. He and Holden come upon two children playing a board game:
Karswell: Ha ha, snakes and ladders. An English game, you wouldn't know it. You see, if you land at the foot of the ladder you climb all the way to the top. But if you land on the head of the snake, you slide all the way down again. Funny thing, I always preferred sliding down the snakes to climbing up the ladders. You're a doctor of psychology, you ought to know the answer to that.
Holden: Maybe you're a good loser.
Karswell: I'm not, you know. Not a bit of it.
To prove his point, Karswell, with but a moment's concentration, conjures a fierce windstorm. The clown-magician has become the powerful wizard showing off. He sends chairs and children scattering to the four winds. Inside the house, Karswell predicts that Holden will die three days hence, at 10 pm. He does so in a matter of fact way, as if giving the time of a train's arrival.
After Holden and Joanna leave there is this exchange between Karswell and his mother:
Karswell: Listen, mother. You believe in the supernatural. I've shown you some of its power and some of its danger.
Mrs. Karswell:Yes, Julian.
Karswell: Well, believe this also. You get nothing for nothing. This house, the land, the way we live. Nothing for nothing. My followers who pay for this do it out of fear. And I do what I do out of fear also. It's part of the price.
Mrs. Karswell: But if it makes you unhappy. Stop it. Give it back.
Karswell:How can you give back life? I can't stop it. I can't give it back. I can't let anyone destroy this thing. I must protect myself. Because if it's not someone else's life, it'll be mine. Do you understand, mother? It'll be mine.
So the villain is as much trapped by the demonic forces as any of his victims.
Holden is a skeptic, but to his own detriment. Even when evidence manifests itself, he stays true to his rationalism until there is nowhere else to go except to accept a different kind of logic -- that the rune is a death warrant and that he needs to be smarter than Karswell to avoid being ripped apart, and must pass the runes back to the sorcerer without his knowledge.
During a break-in at Lufford Hall, Holden encounters a "minor demon", Karswell's cat Graymalkin. This is a classic piece of Tourneur movie making. A cat transforms into a leopard and it's all done with subtle editing, perfect lighting and suggestion.
Jacques Tourneur was a master of black and white movie suspenser. Suggestion, sound effects, surprises and misdirection are familiar tools that he used as a master craftsman of horror. Working on small budgets for RKO in the 40s with producer Val Lewton, he created Cat People and I Walked With A Zombie, two of the best horror films of that, or any subsequent decade. Later that decade, he directed Out of the Past, a classic film noir starring Robert Mitchum.
These days, movie-makers network banks of PCs to create their monsters. In lieu of thse easier to use tools, Tourneur harnessed the imaginations of the audience to the same effect. Suggest rather than show, imply rather than state, a moving shadow is scarier than a clearly seen threat. Anyone making a horror movie would be served well by studying Tourneur's use of camera angles and elevations, too . Tourneur had the skill of drawing the audience into the world of his movies. His way of doing this was by making that world an interesting place, populated by people doing interesting things. When Holden visits Stonehenge and finds the runes on his paper inscribed on the stones, there's an iconic feeling to it. Here is a modern man of science threatened by the looming, powerful mysteries of a past age.
In this film, created over a decade after Tourneur's RKO days and on another continent, his skills are undiminished. The demon itself, which the studio insisted be shown, is somewhat puppet-like but for me, it doesn't spoil the film. Dana Andrews, never a subtle actor, has the staunchness needed for Holden's pragmatism, but it's Niall MacGinnis who steals the show. His Karswell is softly spoken, a stocky, balding man who possesses and is possessed by, immense power. He's oddly likeable and charismatic. MacGinnis would have made a good Albus Dumbledore. He had that gift of sounding both avuncular and menacing simultaneously.
On the DVD of Night of the Demon you also get the truncated US release of the film, titled Curse of the Demon. For me, the longer one is the better. You can never get enough Jacques Tourneur.
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