Goregirl’s Video Review: Night of the Demon (1957)
I review the 1957 film Night of the Demon directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins and Niall MacGinnis. A highly entertaining creature feature from the director of the Brilliant Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie!
December 15, 2011 at 12:45 pm
I watched this as a kid and absolutely loved it – which is strange because creature-feature films have never worked on me. I found it brilliantly atmospheric, the story gripping and I wasn’t disappointed by the monster.
It’s based on the M.R. James tale, Casting the Runes – hard to fail with that sort of source material!
December 15, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Jacques T rocks…if anyone can make a creature feature work it is him. A really beautiful film. I had no idea it was based on a book. I’ll have to check it out!
December 18, 2011 at 10:06 am
Enjoyed your review. I write about Curse of the Demon in Hollywood Enigma: Dana Andrews that is forthcoming from University Press of Missisippi in the fall of 2012.
December 18, 2011 at 1:31 pm
M. R. James is one of my favorite writers, and
I liked this inspiration, the climate between realism and
unreal. Great atmosphere, even the creature is made
well.
December 20, 2011 at 5:00 pm
I feel I should have said more about the atmosphere. I always seem to leave some details out of these video reviews. I will definitely pick up the book!
January 31, 2012 at 8:06 am
[...] which was Reptilicus (1961). Six films I reviewed were not first viewings; Les Diaboliques (1955), Night of the Demon (1957), Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), The Brides of Dracula (1960), Jigoku (1960) and Godzilla (1954 [...]
May 19, 2012 at 6:38 pm
Great post. I just got the dvd with both versions, “Night..” and “Curse..”. after many years searching. There was the ntsc version which I saw in Canada but not usable in Europe. Obviously, I prefer the longer British version with Andrews visit to the family farm of victim Hobart(Brian Wilde) who is only seen at the end of the movie.
M.R. James, on whose story the movie is based, was kind to acknowledge his own inspiration from Irish writers Bram Stoker(Dracula) and the less well known J. Sheridan LeFanu whose work also was the basis of British produced horror movies from the same era.
You might be interested in the references I have to this on my blog here:
http://planetronix.blogspot.com/2012/02/no-such-thing-as-irish-comics.html#comment-form
Ed Delany