Episode 7 of Season 2! Host, Gratton Conwill and special guest, Matt Fields discuss Night of the Demon (1957).
Day 7
Night of the Demon 1h 36m
Night of the Demon is a British black and white horror film released in December of 1957. It was directed by Jaques Tourner and written Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester. The script was based on the 1911 short story “Casting the Runes.” The story of this movie’s production is an interesting one. Upon acquiring the rights to the short story, Charles Bennett loosely adapted it into a screenplay titled The Haunted. He sold the screenplay to an independent producer, Hal E. Chester. Unfortunately for Bennett, not long after the script was sold, he was approached by RKO with an offer to buy the script and let him direct. Since the script was already sold, Bennett could not accept the offer although he would have preferred to direct the movie himself. After producer Hal E. Chester brought in French director Jaques Tourner of Cat People fame, the two had numerous disputes continuing into post production. Tourner claimed that he never wanted the demon to be shown in the final film, however Chester disagreed and without the director’s blessing, added shots of the demon in post production. At an earlier point in production, Tourner was so upset with script changes made by Chester that he threatened to shoot him.
In its original theatrical run, Night of the Demon was shown as a double feature with 20 Million Miles to Earth. As was the trend however, this movie was edited down and renamed for a delayed American release. The film was renamed from Night of the Demon to Curse of the Demon. The rationale being that the distributors did not want audiences confusing Night of the Demon with The Night of the Iguana. Although this explanation comes from producer Charles Bennett himself, the Tennessee Williams play The Night of the Iguana would not debut until three years later in 1961, and the John Huston film adaptation would not be made until 1964.
I could not find any details of the financial or critical success of Night of the Demon when it was released. But, as it stands today, Night of the Demon is considered a British Horror classic and managed to land 9th place in Martin Scorsese’s list of 11 scariest horror movies of all time.
Night of the Demon has:
3.8 on Letterboxd
7.5/10 on IMDb
100% on rotten tomatoes
91% on google
8.58 average CTS score
Escape from Amityville is a limited series podcast event happening exclusively during October of 2021! Starting October 1st, we will review one movie every other day. Each movie will be a lesser known or appreciated, but culturally significant, horror movie made within the past 100 years. None of these movies have anything to do with the original tale of America's most haunted house, but in the spirit of the Amityville story, we promise to review chilling and horrifying movies featuring demons, monsters, and various ghouls! 15 episodes in total! The series finale takes place on Halloween night with a special mystery review. Fans of Giant Monster BS and/or Horror films will be right at home with this podcast. Vulgar, brutally honest, scary as hell, oh yeah... it's Escape from Amityville time Baby!
