I Watch Films: Night Of The Demon

 

Night Of The Demon

Professor Harrington begs Karswell to help him, as he believes he’s been cursed. Karswell asks if he has the rune paper, but it got burned. Karswell promises to do what he can and Harrington is promptly pursued by a demon and crashes his car, killing him.

Dr Holden arrives from the US for a psychology conference. He and Harrington had intended to expose Karswell’s cult (?) as frauds (?). He meets with his colleagues, a hard-headed Irishman and a mystical Indian, also Johanna, Harrington’s niece. Holden meets Karswell, and is given the date of his demise, which is very soon. With Harrington’s death the only clue left is a catatonic murderer who they spend some time trying to get permission to examine.

The film makes the affable Karswell slowly into a villain, as he admits that he has made deals to get his fortune and large house. His mother tries to help, or maybe not; in any case she takes Holden and Johanna to a séance that Holden debunks. (One of a couple of notable interesting shots occurs here where we watch a cat on a ledge walk past the street sign, then pan to see Johanna’s car arrive at the terrace house across the way). Eventually, as things get spookier (the murderer’s family are weird, Holden’s conference schedule has all the pages after his predicted death date torn out) they get permission to examine the murderer, hypnotising him after bringing him to awareness using Pentothal  and then Methamphetamine (these sound great when introduced in a stage-Irish accent). The plot is revealed and the film can head for its ending.

The demon itself looks out of place in a film that otherwise makes its tension from the serious, normal settings of the psychologists being intruded upon by Karswell’s magic. So it was not a surprise to learn that the director and writer didn’t want the demon, leaving it ambiguous, and were overruled by the producer.

Watch This: An interesting parapsychological mystery film
Don’t Watch This: It keeps getting caught up in weird bits of its own plot, is off-handedly racist and the demon itself breaks the mood