Movie review - "Night of the Demon" (1957) ***1/2

A conscious throwback to the cinema of Val Lewtown from Jacques Tourneaur, working off an excellent, literate script (co-credited to Hitchcock's old crony, Charles Bennett). The ever-reliable Dana Andrews is one of the many second-tier Hollywood stars who headed to England in the 50s to make genre movies, but was accidentally rewarded with a cult hit. He's a skeptical professor who is going to speak at a conference, and winds up investigating the death of a colleague.

The macguffin here is passing a parchment which kills those who hold it -I wonder if the makers of The Ring were inspired by this at all? There's some interesting discussions of the role of demons and folk stories, plus scenes involving a seance, old hieroglyphics, stone hedge. The most effective moments are the seemingly normal ones a little inverted: Niall McGinnis (superb as the villain) in a clown outfit playing with children, the impending storm, walks through the woods at night, a visit to a catatonic man's religious family. There are some good old fashioned shocks too like the catatonic man leaping to life.

Andrews is mostly study (a believable professor) although in one or two scenes he seems drunk (I may be projecting here - but look at the seduction scene with Peggy Cummins). Cummins is fine as "the girl". The monster looks a little silly but there's not much of it.