Nights of the Demon: The English Supernatural Story and Film

Abstract

There are other, durable strands to the English Gothic film than merely those dealing in sanguinary, violent excess; the crucial influence of the English ghost story tradition on British cinema continues to this day, re-discovered by successive generations. Any attention paid to this particular strain of (often monochrome) film, featuring more subtle atmospheric narrative devices as opposed to the more graphic bloodletting of the colour rivals, must examine the influence of M.R. James on British cinema (notably in what is generally considered to be the finest single Gothic film ever made in this country, Jacques Tourneur’s Night of the Demon) and must also take on board a detailed celebration of the another great British horror film, Ealing’s portmanteau classic Dead of Night (with its celebrated Michael Redgrave ventriloquist dummy sequence), along with later offshoots of this trend, including The Innocents (after Henry James), The Haunting and Night of the Eagle.