Curse Of The Demon (a.k.a. Night Of The Demon) 1957 As opposed to the previous post's snapshot of The Crawling Eye, the BQ's family members thought this photo of a title character would serve as more fitting insert to the "About Me" bio.......
Perhaps it would......especially when we feel compelled to rant about the latest perversion of the Presidency by Baby Orange........
But enough of him......let's move on to a fictional horror....
Director Jacques Tourneur made his horror film reputation with the darkly subtle, moody movies from the legendary Val Lewton production unit ("Cat People", "The Leopard Man", "I Walked With A Zombie")
Those films never indulged in monster-suited stuntmen.......they cleverly manipulated your own imagination to conjure up all the unseen terrors in your mind. It's what you didn't see that jangled your nerves...
Tourneur intended to suffuse the British made "Night Of The Demon" with the same subdued style......but was bluntly overruled by the film's producers.......
These guys didn't title the film "Night Of The Demon" for nothin'. The film dealt with a skeptical American psychologist (Dana Andrews) inflicted with a satanic curse put on him by a snooty upperclass twit devil worshiper (great oily, sinister work from Niall MacGinnes). And to hell with Val Lewton subtlety......these producers insisted on a real Goddamn demon for their Demon movie. Looks good on the posters, don't ya know.....
And so they shoehorned in their demon, a truly nasty big beastie.......a giant, forever pissed off winged behemoth who bookends the beginning and end of the film in obvious but effective creepy, nightmarish sequences. Tourneur wasn't thrilled with the idea,but this well-rendered puppet (if you compare it to some of the other unintentionally silly 1950's monsters) doesn't harm the film at all, since the bulk of the story traffics in the director's trademark 'you-thought-you-saw-it-but-now-you-don't' jump scares.
Tourneur raises your goosebumps to Everest level whenever he chooses to trot out MacGinness' character, an effete, reptilian snob who lives like a fabulously wealthy Lord due to his deals with the Devil.......(we imagine that raging, hellish creature he conjures up must also supply him with stock tips, in addition to shredding any poor soul who dares to offend him......) You don't want to miss his jolly old appearance as a Halloween party clown......
To be clear, the version of the movie we post about here is the full 95 minute British cut officially titled "Night Of The Demon". We wouldn't waste our time or yours with the truncated cut, released to USA theaters as "Curse Of The Demon". Luckily, the DVD makes both versions of the film available if you don't consider that life is short and care to sample them both......
Go for the gusto, we say, and make "Night Of The Demon" a prime morsel to gobble up this Halloween week, which is exactly when the film takes place. What more could you ask for? An unquestioned 4 big "Boo!"s for this perfect chiller for a chilly October night. (****).....we only wish we had a autographed photo from that too cute Demon.....
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