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Night of the Demon (1957)

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3 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

One of the finest thrillers made in England during the '50s, despite the fact that the final cut was tampered with against the director's wishes. Tourneur had used MR James's short story Casting the Runes as the basis for a marvellous cinematic dialogue between belief and scepticism, fantasy and reality. His intrepid rational hero (Andrews) is a modern scientist who is gradually persuaded that his life is threatened by a black magician. The director employed a number of e normously skilful devices to ensure that the audience experiences the hero's transition from confident scepticism to panic, and the process is observed with such subtlety that, in the original version at least, the interpretation of the plot was left open (i.e. the hero may simply be the victim of a conspiracy and/or his own imagination). The producer decided that the film lacked substance (in fact it was far more terrifying than most horror films), and added special effects of the 'demon' very near the beginning, which of course missed the whole point of what Tourneur had been attempting. Even so, the rest is so good that the film remains immensely gripping, with certain sequences (like the one where Andrews is chased through the wood) reaching poetic dimensions.

Author: DP

Time Out Film Guide

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User reviews of this film

c hunter said...

Posted on Feb 20 2009 17:13 please... where do i purchase this film?

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dave humphrey said...

Posted on Sep 22 2007 20:04 brilliant film saw it first in 1957 and a few times on the television i purchased the video and now the dvd
direction is excellent and so is the acting

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Jeffrey O'Keefe said...

Posted on Aug 23 2007 19:21 I watched this film very late one night,adding that the music just gripped your attention straight away and gave that feel to a film, that otherwise you might casualy have flipped to another channel on the tv.The actors performance is first rate,i am sure they enjoyed making the film.Whenever i am bored or moody i have a dose of the demon and life begins again.I read somewhere that the director Jacques tourneur was a assistant director on a James Bond film.

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