Night of the Demon Review

By rights, Night Of The Demon should not be a lasting classic. Hal E Chester, the American actor-turned-producer and writer (School For Scoundrels), made the film in Britain under his short-lived Sabre Film Productions label, adapting the MR James source story with former Hitchcock collaborator Charles Bennett (plus uncredited input from Cy Endfield, the American filmmaker who'd moved to Britain after his HUAC blacklisting).

Chester brought in French Hollywood veteran Jacques Tourneur (I Walked With A Zombie, Cat People) to direct. That's undeniably an impressive behind-the-cameras line-up, but movie lore has it that it wasn't an easy production, with Tourneur and Bennett coming to blows with Chester over the realisation of the film. Most notoriously they allegedly argued over the presence of close-ups of the demon seen in the film.

Whatever the truth, the film is undeniably a strange mixture of US-style B-movie horror and classy, atmospheric British thriller. Those notorious close-up shots of the monster are both its most famous image and its most troubling aspect. We glimpse the demon first in the dark of night; it's a vision realised with period special effect puppets, fog and process shooting, bolstered by freaky noises and some intense music. The long shots are thoroughly effective. They're weird, disconcerting and half left to the imagination - something Tourneur was reportedly adamant about.

Then we're shown the beast's face, and there's no two ways getting about it - it's cheesily at odds with the rest of the film, and decidedly dated. Yet so tense and atmospheric (thanks in large part to the cinematography by Edward Scaife and impressive design by Ken Adam) is the film that it really doesn't matter. Indeed, so lastingly iconic is the film that it crept into other forms of popular culture, notably with Kate Bush appropriating the line "It's in the trees! It's coming!" for the title track of her 1985 LP 'Hounds Of Love'.