Night of the Demon

In England, Professor Harrington begs his rival, Dr. Julian Karswell, to rescind a curse he inflicted on him; in return, Harrington will cease his investigation into Karswell's Satanic cult. After learning that a parchment he gave Harrington has been destroyed, Karswell promises to do what he can. As Harrington arrives home, he sees a gigantic demon in the trees. Harrington tries to escape in his car but crashes into power lines. The authorities declare electrocution as the cause of death.

Dr. John Holden arrives in Britain to attend a convention at which Harrington had intended to expose Karswell's cult. He is informed that the only link between Harrington's death and Karswell's cult is a man suspected of murder, Rand Hobart, who has fallen into a catatonic stupor. While Harrington's collaborators consider the possibility of supernatural forces, Holden rejects such an option.

Holden meets Karswell at the Reading Room of the British Museum. When a rare book that Holden requests goes missing, Karswell offers to show Holden his own copy at his mansion. At Harrington's funeral, Holden meets Harrington's niece, Joanna. She gives him Harrington's diary, which details Harrington's fear of Karswell's power. Holden remains sceptical, but goes with Joanna to Karswell's mansion the next day. When a strong windstorm abruptly starts, Karswell claims to have created it with a spell. When Holden mocks him, Karswell claims that Holden will die in three days.

Holden and his colleagues discuss Karswell and make plans to examine Rand Hobart. Holden goes to dinner with Joanna and she shows him her uncle's diary. Harrington's diary mentions a parchment with runic writing on it that was passed to him by Karswell, and Holden finds a similar parchment that Karswell secretly passed to him at the library. A powerful wind comes through the window, blowing the parchment from his fingers towards the fireplace, only to be stopped by a fire screen. Holden recovers and pockets it.

Holden visits Hobart's family to seek permission to hypnotise Hobart and find out about the death he is suspected of. The mother gives her consent but says that the family are "believers." As Holden leaves, the parchment is blown from his hand. Hobart's family becomes fearful and declares Holden to be "chosen." Later, Holden compares the parchment's runes to ones inscribed on the nearby stone circle at Stonehenge.

Joanna takes Holden to a séance at the invitation of Karswell's mother. A medium claims to channel Harrington, who tells them that Karswell has the key to reading the runes in his copy of the rare book. After Holden abruptly exits, dismissing the séance as nonsense, Joanna says she intends to search for the key and they drive to Karswell's mansion. Holden breaks into the house while she waits outside. Inside, he is attacked by a cat that seems to morph into a panther. Holden is rescued by Karswell entering and switching on the light, saying he knew Holden would come. Against Karswell's warning, Holden leaves through the woods, and believes he is chased by a cloud of smoke and fire before escaping.

Under hypnosis, the suspect Hobart reveals to Holden that he was "chosen" to die by having a runic parchment passed to him, but avoided death by passing it back to the person who had given it to him. When Holden shows Hobart the parchment he had received from Karswell, Hobart thinks he is trying to give it to him. He becomes hysterical and jumps through a window to his death.

Holden learns Karswell is taking a train to Southampton, and on the train discovers that he has kidnapped and hypnotised Joanna. As the time for Holden's predicted death draws near, the train stops at the next station, and Karswell tries to leave. Holden manages to sneak the parchment into Karswell's coat pocket, and when Karswell finds it, it flies from his hand. He chases it down the tracks, but as he reaches it the parchment combusts. As an oncoming train approaches, the demon manifests and attacks Karswell. When his corpse is found by the tracks, the police believe that he was struck and dragged by the train. Holden, instead of going to inspect the body, departs with Joanna.

• Dana Andrews as Dr. John Holden
• Peggy Cummins as Joanna Harrington
• Niall MacGinnis as Dr. Julian Karswell
• Athene Seyler as Mrs. Karswell
• Liam Redmond as Professor Mark O'Brien
• Peter Elliott as Professor Kumar
• Maurice Denham as Professor Harrington
• Reginald Beckwith as Mr. Meek
• Rosamund Greenwood as Mrs Meek
• Brian Wilde as Rand Hobart
• Charles Lloyd Pack as Chemist (as Charles Lloyd-Pack)
• Ewan Roberts as Lloyd Williamson

Screenwriter Charles Bennett owned the rights to the original story "Casting the Runes" and wrote a screenplay loosely based on it, using the title The Haunted. He sold his script to independent producer and former child actor Hal E. Chester shortly before going to America. Bennett later regretted selling the script, because on arrival in America he was approached by RKO, who wanted to purchase it and allow Bennett to direct the film. Actors Robert Taylor and Dick Powell had been in line for the leading roles if this production had taken place.[4][5][6]

Despite having acquired the project from Bennett, Chester decided the Bennett screenplay was too tame, or as Tony Earnshaw described it, "too British". He hired blacklisted writer Cy Endfield to create the final screenplay. Despite his contribution, which Earnshaw said was "significant", Endfield was ultimately uncredited.[2]

Jacques Tourneur was brought in by Chester on the recommendation of Ted Richmond, the producer of Tourneur's previous film, Nightfall (1957).[5] However, Tourneur and Chester had serious disagreements during filming. One argument was about the wind scene; Tourneur tried to convince Chester to replace two electric fans with two aeroplane engines. When Chester hesitated, star Dana Andrews threatened to leave the picture if Chester did not let "the director direct the picture".[5] Locations for the film include Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire (as Lufford Hall), Stonehenge, Bricket Wood railway station and the Reading Room of the British Museum.[7]

Producer Chester and his British co-producer, Frank Bevis, had decided to show the demon at the beginning and end of the film. Tourneur later said that he was against the addition: "The scenes where you see the demon were shot without me...the audience should never have been completely certain of having seen the demon". Stop motion master Ray Harryhausen was requested by Columbia Pictures to create the demon for the production, but he was already committed to his Dynamation film The 7th Voyage of Sinbad with producer Charles H. Schneer. Author Tony Earnshaw's book Beating the Devil: The Making of Night of the Demon argues that showing the demon was planned early on in the production (despite Tourneur's protests to the contrary), in order to heighten the tension in the film by letting the audience know the demonic powers were real. Bennett, also angry at the script changes, said "If [Chester] walked up my driveway right now, I'd shoot him dead".[6]

In a contemporary review, the Monthly Film Bulletin commented that Tourneur's direction was "handled with much of the assurance the same director brought to Cat People" and that the film was "way above average".[1] The review commented on the image of the demon, stating whenever the demon takes on a visible form, "especially the ending", it seemed more like a product of "a child's nightmare than an adult's imagination".[1]

In the early 2010s, Time Out conducted a poll with several authors, directors, actors, and critics who have worked within the horror genre to vote for their top horror films.[14] Night of the Demon placed at number 52 on their top 100 list.[15] Director Martin Scorsese placed Night of the Demon on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time.[16]

At the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 100%, based on 15 reviews, with an overall weighted average rating of 8.2/10.[17]

• List of British films of 1957

Notes

Bibliography

• Bansak, Edward G. Fearing the Dark: The Val Lewton Career. McFarland, 1995. ISBN 0-7864-1709-9.
• Earnshaw, Tony. Beating the Devil: The Making of Night of the Demon. Tomahawk Press, 2004. ISBN 0-9531926-1-X
• Fujiwara, Chris. Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall. McFarland, 1998. ISBN 0-7864-0491-4.
• Gifford, Denis (2001) [1973]. The British Film Catalogue. Vol. 1 (3 ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-1-57958-171-8.
• Peary, Danny. Cult Movies 2: Fifty More of the Classics, the Sleepers, the Weird, and the Wonderful. Dell, 1989. ISBN 0-385-29753-X.

• Night of the Demon at IMDb
• Night of the Demon at the TCM Movie Database
• Night of the Demon (1957 UK release) at AllMovie
• Night of the Demon (1958 US release) at AllMovie
• Night of the Demon at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Night of the Demon at Rotten Tomatoes