By DAVE DUGGINS

It should come as no surprise to regular readers of my stuff here at HORROR-WOOD that I love Jacques Tourneur films. Then again, maybe it does surprise you, since most of my articles are about really bad films … and boy, do I love them.

There is a rationale behind my perspective, however twisted it may seem. Bear with me.

Serious horror buffs like myself come across works of true merit but rarely. Most of the time, we’re left to sift through the average, the below-average and the sub-basement I-can’t-believe-somebody-actually-gave-money-to-this-guy complete garbage that makes up the lion’s share of horror cinema. We end up watching a lot of crap, hoping for a Psycho, a Night Of The Living Dead, an Exorcist--something that will really hit the buttons, scare us up out of the doldrums, make us pinch ourselves to be sure we’re real and this is just a movie.

Watching a lot of bad movies, you develop a real taste for them. You learn to revel in them. You learn to be a glutton. So when the good stuff comes around, you appreciate it all the more. You eat a lot of hamburgers, you really love having steak once a year.

There’s hardly any in-between with this genre; it’s hamburger or it’s sirloin tip. Either the director gets it or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, it becomes comedy. It may even become unintentionally great comedy. Many of the films I’ve dealt with in the past were of that stripe.

But it’s walpurghisnacht, my friends. Samhain. There’s a light ground mist springing up around us, circling our ankles like something alive as we walk through this darkening forest. And there is a chill here that has nothing to do with oncoming winter. A demon has haunted these woods since 1957 … and even now, 43 years later, there is nothing funny about it.

Tonight, my friends, we’re serving steak. In honor of Halloween.

Night Of The Demon (titled Curse Of The Demon when I saw in on TV several years ago) is not Tourneur’s best film, but since they’re all great, that’s not exactly a criticism. Cat People gets the honor. Maybe we’ll talk about that one later.

Demon takes a standard horror premise, based loosely on the M.R. James’ story "Casting The Runes," and fleshes it out with mood, atmosphere and excellent performances. Dr. John Holden, played by Dana Andrews, visits London to attend a parapsychology symposium chaired by Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis). Karswell, whose character is based on the infamous Aleister Crowley, wants to convince the world that supernatural forces do indeed exist. Holden, though equally well-versed in the occult, is an arch skeptic whose whole purpose in attending the symposium is to debunk Karswell. Holden is cursed by Karswell, who wants to give Holden the opportunity to meet the demon firsthand. So much for debunking.

Holden is finally convinced of the existence of the demon, but Karswell is the one who ultimately falls victim to it. The end result is the typical horror-movie moral: don’t mess with the dark side. You never know when it might turn on you.

Stripped down to its basics, it doesn’t sound like much, does it?. But the story is just the skeleton. When it comes to horror, you’ve only got a handful of plots to work with anyway; beyond, that, it’s all about style. Like Hitchcock, Tourneur was a master stylist. There’s not much in the way of graphic violence in his work, but there’s loads of mood, excellent use of light and shadow and excellent camera work.

Characterization also helps build a sense of reality. Karswell is the most three-dimensional character, which is also unusual for a fifties horror film. Often the villains are really no more than a compendium of their diabolical deeds, with very little light shed on the motivations for their behavior. Here Karswell is drawn very clearly: he wants recognition for the hard work that he’s done. Not too tough to relate to. There’s not much to Holden beyond his desire to prove that supernatural forces do not exist--a bit odd when you consider that he’s an expert in the field. Still, they are hard-headed, stubborn, determined, and more than fit opponents. Their conflict enriches and adds dimension to the story.

Of course, the narrative immediately tips the scales in favor of Karswell-- too soon, some critics say, with the demon appearing in one of the early scenes to dispatch another of Karswell’s opponents. If you’re a skeptic, there’s not a hell of a lot you can say when the demon you don’t believe in pops up right in front of you and starts tearing you to shreds.

The demon shows up a few more times in the film--something that surprises a lot of die-hard Tourneur fans. Wait a minute. This is the guy who never shows us the monster, right? Well, folks, let me say it here in no uncertain terms, particularly for those budding screenwriters among you: film is a collaborative process. Call me a cynic, but I might also add that the screenwriter is at the bottom of the food chain. Weird, isn’t it? Without the writer, there would be no story. But the way Hollywood sees it, any idiot can crank out a story. More’s the pity. And off the point, as well...

Tourneur, in this case, was forced by the studio to shoot some footage of an actual demon to be inserted at key points in the film. If, like me, you saw the film once and then read in a film magazine that it was originally shot without the demon being visible at all, you’re faced with an unanswerable question: would the film have been improved if the demon was never seen?

The thing is, once you’ve seen it, the demon--that twisted, rancorous face out of a medieval woodcut--makes a strong impression. It becomes impossible to imagine what the film would be like without it. Even if it were possible to re-cut the film (doubtless it is in this wondrous age of digital technology), you’re stuck with what you’ve already seen. And you’ve seen the monster. It’s a pretty nasty monster, to be sure … but a little cartoony for a Tourneur film, it seems to me.

It’s a moot point. The new version of Demon, available only on VHS as of this writing, contains around ten minutes of footage that were excised from the original release print. I’ve yet to see that version, so I’d be interested in hearing from those of you out there who have.

Tourneur clearly had a real love for the genre, helming Cat People, I Walked With A Zombie and Out Of The Past, as well as mainstream films such as The Fearmakers which, while not a horror film, considered the darkness and paranoia run rampant at the height of the McCarthy years.

Curse Of The Demon is the perfect Halloween film. It has become something that lives in the imagination, haunts the memory long afterward. All of Tourneur’s films are like that: nightmare in celluloid. He pushes the visual set of reality into a particular shape, preferring to shoot on sound stages rather than using outdoor locations, controlling every aspect of the environment (a philosophy Tim Burton borrowed for Sleepy Hollow).

The results sometimes do not date too well when viewed forty or fifty years on; there are critics of films such as Cat People--Stephen King among them--who simply cannot buy a great set piece like Jane Randolph’s narrow escape from the cat creature in Central Park because it’s so obviously shot on a soundstage.

For me, this is really not an issue. Everything in movies is fake. Even if you shoot in the real Central Park. Even if there’s a title card at the beginning that says "This is a true story." Maybe, guys, but the medium fictionalizes. Even documentaries do it. Can’t be helped. It is the work of the film to tell a story.

The magic lies in the ability to make me believe the demon is real even though my rational mind knows it’s fake.

The magic is to take Holden … and turn him into Karswell.

Thanks, Dave!  One can argue about whether the demon should have been shown, but none can argue that, demon or not, this is a jolly good scary film--perfect for haunted Halloween nights...

Article copyright © Dave Duggins.   Visit his website.  

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