Directed by Jacques Tourneur
Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins and Niall MacGinnis
Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, a movie in the 2017 Black (and White) Christmas Spectacular that I can't quite recommend. Night of the Demon isn't a bad flick by any stretch of the imagination, but I did find it to be a pretty damn tepid one. A lot of the movies that I've watched this silly season have been great because they're all forward momentum with absolutely no time for bullshit. The running time on this one pushes past 90 minutes, and it shows big time with how much shots there are of dudes sitting around in libraries talking about stuff. Not terribly exciting. Pretty much every critic alive disagrees with me. I just thought I would throw that little factoid out there.
Without a doubt, director Jacques Tourneur had some grand plans for this movie. It's shot with the kind of care and attention to detail that only directors pre-CGI could have. There are also exactly three - count 'em, three - scenes that I absolutely LOVED, which we'll be getting to in due time. So Tourneur knew what the hell he was doing; in my mind, it was just that the story wasn't big enough. The plot comes from a 1911 M.R. James short story called "Casting the Runes," and with this, I now get another of the references in the "Science Fiction, Double Feature" Rocky Horror song. With absolutely no knowledge of how long that story is, I can only surmise that the effort to stretch it to feature length was the undoing here. With all of that said, let's go about unpacking said small plot in a big movie.
Within five minutes of the movie starting we get one of those aforementioned scenes that I loved. Welcome to the house of Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis), a man suspected of dabbling in Satanism. Although, is Satanism really something that can be dabbled in? It kind of seems like an all-or-nothing proposition. That theory gets tested when rival Professor Harrington (Maurice Denham) threatens to expose him and getes reminded of the threat that hangs over his head. Upon driving home, a bunch of creepy sound effects start playing on the soundtrack...and then a freakin' animated demon emerges from the forest and kills the ever-loving f**k out of him. This whole bit is really chilling and effective, and I'll admit to being amped for everything to come. But then we meet Dr. Holden.
Yes, folks, Dr. Holden. John Holden, to be precise, played by Dana Andrews and unfortunately a very mopey, somewhat dislikable character who dominates the plot from here on out. Weirdly enough, I don't even think it's the way that the character was constructed - Holden is there to be the skeptic of the movie, the guy who believes that nothing that happened or is happening is because of any kind of supernatural slant. But...I don't know. A lot of the other reviews I've read of this movie just heap praise on Andrews in this role, and I'm sure he was a fine actor in his time, but here he just kind of comes off as a sanctimonious prick. Is this truth, or is this just another instance of that incredibly rare (to the point of affecting one person on Earth) glandular condition? Only time will tell.
The plot device is this: Holden is an American professor who is now in England to attend the conference where Harrington intended on exposing Karswell's Satanic cult. There's also a quasi-love interest in the form of Harrington's niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins) who promptly contributes nothing else to the movie other than some red-hot black-and-white sexual tension. We get some delightful bickering as Holden and Karswell mock each other's beliefs (or lack thereof) before we get the real crux of the story: Karswell casually informing Holden that he has three days left to live. Gulp.
I should also point out that there is this whole side plot involving a character named Rand Hobart (Brian Wilde), another link between cult activity and Karswell. Hobart has been cataonic since the death of his brother, and figuring out why takes up the bulk of the running time. See, Karswell is able to cause anyone to be cursed by passing an unholy parchment onto their person - something that he did with both Hobart (who in turn passed the document back to his own brother) and now with Holden. From here, the movie takes on the "race against time" format as Hobart figures out the mystery, eventually leading us to a final ten minutes that actually manages to redeem the movie somewhat in my own mind. At least as much as a fantastic game of "pass the parchment" can be. You'd be surprised how covert you have to be to get somebody to carry a paper around if they know it's coming back.
First, some good stuff. The atmosphere of the film is fantastic, especially some of the stuff at Karswell's mansion. In particular, there is one shot of Holden looing down what appears to be an endless hallway that glued me to the television screen. On the acting end, MacGinnis turns in the best performance of the movie by far. The character of Karswell really isn't some vile, nasty cult leader - at least in my own mind. He's a guy trying to save his own skin, and the way that he does this is no doubt immoral, but weirdly enough the dude actually comes across as somewhat likable. The music is also extremely well-done, granting all the shots of the English countryside and the jagged edges of the Karswell home its appropriate dreariness.
The problem that I had with Night of the Demon is that it's just a really boring film with a lot of padding. How much padding? There is a seance scene where various characters talk to Harrington, complete with a comedic gold traditional British song being sung beforehand. It might not sound funny, but trust me...it is. There's also a scene where Hobart is hypnotized into telling the audience the key piece of information about sacred parchments being responsible for all of the death. Both of these take up something like five minutes of running time, and...slog. For American release, it was trimmed down by roughly 13 minutes and re-titled as Curse of the Demon, and I can see why the change was made. But I wanted to be legit - I watched this movie in its full, intended form, so that's what I'm reviewing. Thus, the giant demon attack at the end of the movie can't quite pull it up to positive territory. Oh yeah, spoiler alert.
The time for judgment is upon us. ** out of ****. The flick is definitely worth checking out for historical purposes, but it's not one that you'll ever want to revisit. At least I won't.
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