For as long as there have been horror movies the question has been asked: should the terror be merely suggested or should filmmakers “go for the grossout,” as Stephen King put it? While there is certainly room at the table for both quiet and extreme horror, the 1958 film, Curse of the Demon makes a valid argument for the former.
The opening shots set the mood beautifully. We see a car hurtling down a lonely stretch of road in the middle of the night, trees forming eerie silhouettes in the headlights. The driver, a tense, nervous looking man, is Professor Henry Harrington and he’s on his way to see Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis), the leader of a demonic cult. Though details are left delightfully vague, Harrington begs Karswell to stop what he has put into motion.
Some things are easier to start than stop, as Karswell points out, and before the night is out Harrington is slaughtered by a gigantic, spike-headed, bat-winged demon that could easily have sprung from the pen of H.P. Lovecraft.
Soon our hero enters the fray in the form of Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews). Holden arrives in England where he is to take part in a seminar debunking allegedly supernatural phenomena. Chief on his schedule is an expose of Karswell’s demonic cult, a project he had been working on with Harrington.
Holden meets, and begins falling for, Harrington’s niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins). Joanna insists Karswell has somehow caused her uncle’s death. Holden scoffs. In fact, he does a lot of scoffing in this movie. He is a scientist and believes there is a rational explanation for everything.
While doing some research at a London museum, Holden is visited by Karswell. Despite Karswell’s request, Holden refuses to call off his expose. Karswell slips Holden a parchment bearing runic symbols, and the plot is off and running.
Holden refuses to believe the parchment has marked him for death at the hands of the same creature that killed Harrington, but evidence to the contrary begins to mount, and we’re soon on our way to a confrontation between the worlds of logic and the supernatural.
A lot of what happens in this movie happens below the surface, and not just the supernatural elements. The verbal sparring between Holden and Karswell works particularly well. For the most part they maintain a believable façade of cordiality to one another, despite the fact that we know — as do they — that they will soon be at one another’s throat. Only at the points where one of the characters has angered the other to the point of an outburst do we see the true nature of their relationship.
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Article comments
1 - Iloz Zoc
An excellent film, and the slow realization that there just might be things that go bump in the night by Holden is well done. The short story by MR James,Casting the Runes, is nicely translated here. I would love to see more of James' work translated to screen.
2 - Pat Evans
The long version may be a little creaky now, but it is still a British classic...and scary.