Directed by Jacques Tourneur / Screenplay by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester

Adapted from Casting the Runes, a 1911 short story by M.R. James, Night of the Demon is a British fantasy film with a transatlantic twist. While the source material and most of the cast are quintessentially English (filming locations include Stonehenge and the British Museum), top billing goes to American star Dana Andrews, enlisted to attract the US box office, while the director is the French-American Jacques Tourneur, whose earlier credits include the film noir thriller Cat People (1942). The result is a strange brew, mingling a noir style with elements of what would later be dubbed ‘folk horror’. Psychologist Dr John Holden (Andrews) is investigating the activities of occultist Dr Julian Karswell (played with urbane malevolence by Niall MacGinnis), who seems able to dispose of his enemies by means of runic inscriptions which summon a terrifying demon. Tourneur intended to honour the spirit of the original story by never explicitly showing the monster on screen, preserving the possibility that the deaths are natural accidents: but producer Hal Chester overruled him and insisted that the demon be shown. Appearing only at the beginning and end of the film, the creature is a technical marvel and genuinely ferocious, but Night of the Demon’s reputation rests on its more ambiguous middle passages, including a seance during which a dead man’s voice is heard to cry ‘It’s in the trees! It’s coming!’ - a clip famously sampled by Kate Bush for her hit ‘Hounds of Love’. And that’s not the only song to tip its hat to Night of the Demon: it’s among the films referenced in ‘Science Fiction Double Feature’, the opening number of The Rocky Horror Show.

Framed Dimensions: 315mm x 400mm

Acrylic on 230gsm Winsor & Newton canvas paper

Glazed, mounted and framed

Supplied with signed letter of authenticity from Barnaby.