NIGHT OF THE DEMON has a weakness that is also a strength -- it shows the demon.The reason this is a strength is easy to explain: the demon looks awesome. It's a complete scene stealer. It shows up early on and at the climax of the film, appearing in a puff of smoke, a horned, winged, clawed, sharp-toothed monster that always seems to be smoldering. It's a triumph of special effects, especially for the time. I wonder if Peter Jackson had this in mind when they designed the Balrog for LORD OF THE RINGS?
The reason this is a weakness is a little more complex. The story of NIGHT OF THE DEMON involves an American psychologist who is traveling to London to participate in a paranormal psychology convention. This is Dana Andrews playing a total skeptic. Part of his mission in London is to expose a devil worshipping cult as not only a huge fraud, but also potentially a group of dangerous killers. Of course, this puts him immediately on the cult's hit list. Meanwhile, his partner in skepticism (Maurice Denham) has recently shown up dead under mysterious circumstances.
Here's the deal: as the audience, we know Denham's character was menaced by a supernatural demon before he died. We know he visited the leader of the cult (Niall MacGinnis) begging for his life the same night that he ended up dead. Because we know this, it casts a shadow over the rest of the movie, which unfolds like a mystery with Andrews' character teaming up with his love interest, the niece of his dead partner played by Peggy Cummins. We know for a fact something supernatural is going on, so all of Andrews' skepticism, while totally logical and rational, gets a little old and annoying, fast.
The thing is, if we hadn't seen the supernatural death, the rest of the events of the movie leading up to the climax would be ambiguous enough that we'd wonder if Andrews is right to be skeptical. Since we know a demon is involved and saw the evil creature with our own eyes, we know all along Andrews, while totally making sense, is also totally wrong.
So, the demon works as a great visual. But, it kind of overshadows the good aspects of the story, which involve the battle between critical thinking and magical beliefs. The two seem kind of mutually exclusive, but here they are butting up against each other. All that said, the movie is still good. Still, it's a frustrating glimpse at what could have been even greater.
There's a creepy seance scene, a good climax involving the reapparance of the demon, and some good sparring dialog between the skeptic Andrews and the cult leader MacGinnis. MacGinnis is particularly effective, seeming at once to know more than any of the other characters while also projecting an uneasy kind of social unease. Even if he wasn't a sorcerer, he'd make you nervous to be around. He's especially unsettling in his first meeting with Andrews where he's entertaining children at his annual Halloween party dressed as a clown magician, a fake smile and bulbous prosthetic nose attached to his devilish face. Yuck, no thanks.
The movie is shot beautifully in black and white, ironically specifically towards the beginning and end of the film during the demon sequences and has an admirably bombastic score that shifts into super weird gear when the demon shows up. Reading up on the film, it appears there was a struggle between the producer of the film who wanted the demon to be visually represented and the director and writer who wanted to leave the film ambiguous. Again, despite the fact that these approaches seem to be mutually exclusive, they seem to have struck as good of a balance as they possibly could, given the circumstances -- an odd case where the striking visuals of the film are actually at odds with the intellectual ideas the movie leaves you with.
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