Director: Jacques Tourneur
Year: 1957
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: Night of the Demon
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Fascinated with his magical abilities, a man's investigation into a performer's past leads to a world of the occult and the supernatural, eventually leading to the discovery that a strange monster is on the loose, looking for him, and his only chance to escape lies in the strange man he's investigating.
Review:
This one was one of the better examples of the style around. What really makes for such a good time here is the actual build-up of mythical powers he displays, which are not only quite fun but also certainly worthy of such a great, powerful villain. The early build-up here comes along at its best with the confrontations in the library where the first threats are uncovered, the disclosure of the previous knowledge in the meetings between the two before the actual events began and the continual drops of knowledge here that he knows more than he lets on in the meeting at his house where he conjures the storm to fully expose his powers and interests quite clearly which are not only the really overt display of powers but also makes for a chilling setup for the enjoyably chilling story here.
Not just being great scenes but furthering the death-curse enabled by the practitioner makes for an even better time here as there's a solid foundation of action scenes throughout here, from the opening scene here of the demon appearing from the smoke-screen and fire effects chasing after the guy through the woods, the demon-cat attack in his personal library and the absolutely startling attack at the end where the train-car scenes bring about the full extent of his new-found knowledge which is then turned around on the practitioner as he chases the parchment into the foggy night where the reappearing demon begins the big chase and eventual appearance that makes for a really grand and exciting scene which gives this some really exciting and fun sequences. The fact that there's a lot going on here gives this part of a lot of great parts within here as there's a ton to like here with that, and coupled with the effective and chilling monster creation which is truly haunting and chilling to be completely worthy of the fear it instills in others all gives this one a lot to overcome the few minor flaws on display.
The biggest one here is the fact that the skeptical disbeliever angle employed here that has to undergo such an extreme amount of activity against him, he cannot disprove rationally that at the end, he has to believe in the story, is such a tired cliché that really recycling it is such a cop-out rather than anything really interesting to the story as a whole. There's so much thrown in here that he should've been a believer long before, and some tension in how to defeat the curse with how much occult knowledge he has would've been quite fun here. The only other small flaw here is the unnecessarily long and pointless scenes in the conference where they go back-and-forth for several minutes with the hypnotized guest, which just makes no sense at all by confusing what is already known and merely wasting time before leading to the grand climax. These are all that's wrong here.
Overview: *****/5
A classic in every sense of the word, this is easily one of the better features in this era and manages to do so much to like with a few flaws that don't impact this one overall. Those with an appreciation for this era of genre fare, who enjoy this style presented here, or who are fans of the creative crew, will have the most to like with this one, while most others should heed mild caution.
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