DVD Of The Week: Night Of The Demon (1957)

Often when we revisit things that hold fond childhood memories - such as books, films, television programmes and places - we find that in the cold light of adult eyes the objects that once held such magic and fascination are flawed and not truly as grand as we remembered.

I cannot recall exactly how old I was when I came across Night Of The Demon on late-night TV, but it certainly made such an impact on my impressionable, young mind that I couldn't wait to see it again.

Unfortunately, it has proved notouriously hard to track down on DVD here in the UK - due to some legal wrangling over the movie rights, as far as I can figure out - and it took HeroPress reader I, Warren from Toronto to point out that film was available from Amazon in Canada.

So I settled down today to watch my new arrival - with slight apprehension that my childhood memories might be rose-tinted - but I was not disappointed.

Night Of The Demon still holds up all these years later.

Dana Andrews plays cynical American scientist John Holden who flies to England for a conference on claims of paranormal activity only to find that his colleague Professor Harrington has been killed while investigating a supposed "devil cult".

Holden takes over the investigation into the cult and meets its wealthy and charming leader, Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis). Initially Holden dismisses him as harmless, but refuses to drop the investigation and that's when things start to go from bad to worse for him.

Holden has embarked on a classic Call Of Cthulhu investigation, consulting arcane books, attending seances and meeting strange local folk but still finding time to flirt with Harrington's gung-ho niece, kindergarten teacher Joanna (Peggy Cummings).

Unfortunately, by now, Karswell has laid the same curse on Holden that he did on Harrington and the cynic begins to have his eyes opened to the supernatural world as the clock ticks down towards his prophesied time of death at the hands of a summoned fire-demon.

Naturally, by today's standards, the effects are pretty basic and the demon itself - thankfully only glimpsed briefly - is clearly a puppet, but the story is just overflowing with atmosphere and understated menace.

Even right up to the closing credits, there remains the suggestion that the whole threat was possibly just in the minds of the victims all along and not a genuine "monster". I think it was that doubt which stuck in my mind as much as those tantalising scenes of Karswell chasing the all-important piece of parchment down the railway track towards the smoke-shrouded beast.

The DVD (which, rather strangely, has its menus written in Japanese) also includes the shorter, 82-minute cut of the film which was released for the American market under the title of Curse Of The Demon.

Ironically, Night Of The Demon was shown on BBC2 late on Friday night. I hope some of you caught it.