Episode description
NOT The 1980 James C. Wasson film in which an anthropologist and his students attempt to track down a Bigfoot responsible for a rash of violent murders…
OR the 1988 Kevin Tenney film, Night of the Demons’ where Ten teenagers party at an abandoned funeral parlor on Halloween, awakening demonic spirits…
Rather, we all, hopefully, watched the 1957 British horror film, produced by Hal E. Chester and Frank Bevis directed by Jacques (Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie) Tourneur (or ‘Jack Turner’ as the French Director was referred to in the UK). starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins and Niall (Zeus from Jason and the Argonauts) MacGinnis.
Adapted from the M (‘Montague’) R. James story "Casting the Runes" first published in 1911 as the fourth story in More Ghost Stories, which was James' second collection of ghost stories.
Screenwriter Charles Bennett owned the rights to the story and wrote a screenplay loosely based on it, using the title ‘The Haunted’. Bennett later regretted selling the script to Chester, as he was later approached by RKO, to direct the film himself.
Chester decided the Bennett screenplay was “too tame” and "too British" so hired Cy Endfield who had been blacklisted by the House of Un-American Activities Committee as a Communist and forced to move to the UK. Despite his contribution, which was said to be "significant", he was ultimately uncredited. Cy Enfield incidentally was the writer and director of Zulu.
Director Tourneur and Producer Chester had serious disagreements during filming. One argument was about the wind scene; Tourneur tried to convince Chester to replace two electric fans with two aeroplane engines. When Chester hesitated, star Dana Andrews threatened to leave the picture if Chester did not let "the director direct the picture"
Chester also decided to show the demon at the beginning and end of the film, despite Tourneurs protests, he added the scenes in post production:
Cue James’ French accent…
"The scenes where you see the demon were shot without me...the audience should never have been completely certain of having seen the demon".
Original screenwriter, Bennett, was also so angry at the script changes, he said "If [Chester] walked up my driveway right now, I'd shoot him dead".
Ray Harryhausen was asked to create the demon for the production, but he was already committed to The 7th Voyages of Sinbad.
To accelerate the pace and make the film more commercial, the 96-minute original feature was trimmed down to 82 minutes prior to its release in the United States. This shortened version was retitled Curse of the Demon, playing in June 1958 as the second half of a double feature with either ‘The True Story of Lynn Stuart’ or ‘The Revenge of Frankenstein’
Kate Bush has said this is one of her favorite films, and it has influenced her on at least two occasions: the song Hounds of Love begins with a quote from a line spoken in the film by Maurice Denham, and somewhat more obliquely, the film ‘The Line The Cross And The Curve’ borrows the idea that the possession of a small slip of paper with mystic symbols can confer great power, as well as borrowing several images and set pieces…
Night of the Demon was also mentioned in the opening song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show ("Science Fiction Double Feature"): "Dana Andrews said prunes gave him the runes, but passing them used lots of skills".
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