Night of the Demon

Th- that's like the trifecta.

Um, and he, you know, made other amazing horror hits like Curse of the Demon, uh, later outside of the Lewton stuff.

But he got...

Because of how well Cat People, Zombie, and Leopard Man did financially, he got promoted within RKO to doing A pictures.

Nobody has to spend 40 minutes convincing him that supernatural forces might possibly exist.

He sees the evidence and essentially says, "I know exactly what this is, and we're getting out of here with our friend." Now, this is a total contrast to Night of the Demon's protagonist, Dr.

John Holden, from last week.

Needless to say, Simon refuses to cooperate, so the Duke takes the most direct approach available and knocks him straight up unconscious.

Like, I think very recently that happened.

I mean, this is just an episode or two ago, but with like the Night of the Demon where you were like, well, we don't know that it was supernatural the whole time.

And I was like, oh, yeah, I guess you're right.

In my worldview, I was like, oh, we knew the whole time.

So one more carry-on or other... speech that he did and Gerald Thomas will be breaking back into the Hall of Fame after having had to go out the back door.

With 10 appearances there's two people there's uh Alan Beaton who was in Carry On Teacher, Constant Husband, Curse of the Demon, Dunkirk, Gideon's Day, Just My Luck, Night to Remember, Square Peg and Troubling Star and Frank Forsyth who uh appears as some nice IMDb teacher is um some kind of corpse in a helmet He was in Big Job, Carry On Cabbie, Carry On Constable, Carry On Nurse, Carry On Sergeant, Dunkirk, Evil of Frankenstein, Lavender Hill Mob and Nightmare.

So, you know, Ealing, Hammer and Carry On, he's doing quite well

there.

OK, let me answer Eric's question a little more.

I'll refer to a film that I think all four of us know, which is in the 1957 Curse of the Demon, the film with Dana Andrews as the unbeliever.

The first time we meet the Satanists in that film, where there's an actual dialogue exchange, not the passing of the runes in the library, he's a clown at a children's birthday party that his mom is giving.

And in the clown makeup, he proves to Dana Andrews, disbelieving Dana Andrews, that he can conjure a storm by kicking up a windstorm that destroys the party.

This month is Season of the Witch, and I got four movies filled with witchcraft, black magic, ancient curses, secret cults, demonic forces, and the occasional unfortunate person who thinks [laughs] all of this supernatural nonsense can probably be explained rationally right up until something from Hell proves otherwise.

We'll be taking on Night of the Demon, The Devil Rides Out, The City of the Dead, and Black Sunday.

We'll be traveling from foggy English roads and quiet little villages to satanic ceremonies and cursed crypts.

We'll be traveling with Christopher Lee, Barbara Steele, and a whole collection of witches, warlocks, cultists, and demons waiting for us along the way.

So light the candles, pour the salt, double-check that nobody has slipped a cursed piece of parchment in your coat pocket, and cozy up for Season of the Witch on The Introverted Obelisk.

Tonight, we're talking about curses, black magic, and the unsettling possibility that a man in a bathrobe might be significantly more dangerous than a monster with fangs.

I'm talking about Jacques Tourneur's 1957 classic, Night of the Demon, as it was released in Britain.

And in the United States, it was released as Curse of the Demon.

And this is the podcast where we talk about two movies a week every Tuesday and Thursday.

And this Tuesday, we are talking about Night of the Demon, as it is called in the UK.

But here in the US, it is called Curse of the Demon.

So we got that a little mixed up whenever we first were talking about this movie.

We are going to get through this.

So...

Night of the Demon starring...

And I should say it stars Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, and Niall McGuinness.