Episode description

Dead of Night is a 1945 black and white British anthology horror film, made by Ealing Studios, was their sole attempt at making a horror movie. 

It Featured the following stories

• The Hearse Driver, based on "The Bus-Conductor" by E. F. Benson
• The Christmas Party
• The Haunted Mirror
• The Golfer's Story, based on "The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost" by H. G. Wells

and

• The Ventriloquist's Dummy

The individual segments were directed by by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. 

The film is best remembered for the concluding story featuring Michael Redgrave and an insane ventriloquist's malevolent dummy.

Dead of Night is a rare British horror film of the 1940s; horror films were banned from production in Britain during the war. It had an influence on subsequent British films in the genre. Both of John Baines' stories were reused for later films and the possessed ventriloquist dummy episode was adapted into the pilot episode of the long-running CBS radio series Escape.

The circular plot of Dead of Night inspired Fred Hoyle's steady state model of the universe, developed in 1948.

Mario Livio in Brilliant Blunders cites the impact of a viewing of Dead of Night had on astrophysicists Fred Hoyle, Hermann Bondi, and Thomas Gold. "Gold asked suddenly, "What if the universe is like that?' meaning that the universe could be eternally circling on itself without beginning or end. Unable to dismiss this conjecture, they started to think seriously of an unchanging universe, a steady state universe.

In the early 2010s, Time Out conducted a poll with several authors, directors, actors and critics who have worked within the horror genre to vote for their top horror films. Dead of Night placed at number 35 on their top 100 list. Director Martin Scorsese placed Dead of Night 5th on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time.

Writer/director Christopher Smith was inspired by the circular narrative in Dead of Night when making his 2009 film Triangle.

Something Horrific:

Censor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRrhXjH1M70

HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR The Mark of Satan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTKjizivKRU

Help my House is Haunted

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPpZOb0svC0

$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$

Just in case anyone has too much money and wants to give a bit to us to help with our hosting n stuff. It would be amazing if you fancied sending us some pennies - thank you.

https://supporter.acast.com/general-witchfinders

$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/general-witchfinders.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.