Night Of The Demon is my favourite horror film with its incantations, medieval mythologies and worldly witchcraft abounding. I hadn't seen this one properly since 1974 when I didn't like it solely because it wasn't what I was expecting. Seeing it properly for the first time as an adult I quite like it but not as much as the usual, more mundane Hammer productions; again it's just not what I expect, I've come full circle. Watching Dracula, Frankenstein or Plague Of The Zombies for instance is like seeing old friends again, this is like seeing the gasman again.
Two people find that their mutual friend is up to his eyeballs with a Satanic group, they decide to attempt (repeatedly) to prise him from the group's clutches. The Devil is in the detail though For Hammer it was a different approach to horror, it's generally well acted, directed and photographed – it's just that the story is more silly than scary. Mainly Dennis Wheatley's fault, not Christopher Lee's. A lot of it works but I'm afraid ultimately all this type of film adds up to is an authentication of mumbo-jumbo to ordinary people and the justification of religion to combat the forces of Evil that are so obviously manifest. Do any people interested in the Dark Side not believe in a God? Nowadays these cults wander about with bombs to cause mayhem, then they used to blood themselves for their kicks. Lee has a commanding presence - in fact commanding everyone about in self-congratulatory capital letters, Leon Greene was very very trusting throughout – he wouldn't have looked out of place in The Flashing Blade too alongside Patrick Allen's voice, and sinister Charles Gray was menacing the safety of the world yet again. It's brooding but for a film dealing with the seriously supernatural and ethereal I'm sure there's a spookier atmosphere in my local bread shop.
The film follows fairly tight moral guidelines that The Exorcist and all subsequent films on the subject have gradually abandoned. It's enjoyable nonsense, to be taken with a huge pinch of salt and no boiled blood – but I prefer even hokier horror films than this, even with comedy. To end all arguments and therefore solve all problems (as they did in here and similar to the 1999 Mummy) all I can hopefully but imperiously say is Galatim Galatah and Goodnight!
Two people find that their mutual friend is up to his eyeballs with a Satanic group, they decide to attempt (repeatedly) to prise him from the group's clutches. The Devil is in the detail though For Hammer it was a different approach to horror, it's generally well acted, directed and photographed – it's just that the story is more silly than scary. Mainly Dennis Wheatley's fault, not Christopher Lee's. A lot of it works but I'm afraid ultimately all this type of film adds up to is an authentication of mumbo-jumbo to ordinary people and the justification of religion to combat the forces of Evil that are so obviously manifest. Do any people interested in the Dark Side not believe in a God? Nowadays these cults wander about with bombs to cause mayhem, then they used to blood themselves for their kicks. Lee has a commanding presence - in fact commanding everyone about in self-congratulatory capital letters, Leon Greene was very very trusting throughout – he wouldn't have looked out of place in The Flashing Blade too alongside Patrick Allen's voice, and sinister Charles Gray was menacing the safety of the world yet again. It's brooding but for a film dealing with the seriously supernatural and ethereal I'm sure there's a spookier atmosphere in my local bread shop.
The film follows fairly tight moral guidelines that The Exorcist and all subsequent films on the subject have gradually abandoned. It's enjoyable nonsense, to be taken with a huge pinch of salt and no boiled blood – but I prefer even hokier horror films than this, even with comedy. To end all arguments and therefore solve all problems (as they did in here and similar to the 1999 Mummy) all I can hopefully but imperiously say is Galatim Galatah and Goodnight!