Blog 4: Night of the Demon

I believe the film Night of the Demon is a horror by Carroll's definition. It has two possible monsters, the demon itself and Karswell. The demon is definitely fearsome, disgusting, and impossible according to our accepted scientific beliefs which are all important characteristics of monsters according to Carroll. Defining Karswell as a monster is a little more tricky though. Karswell has his moments of seeming to be a friendly man that just wishes to be left alone, but his connection to black magic in his studies and what seems to be his ability to use black magic to create a wind storm and the charm he placed on his cat to turn into a panther is unnatural and goes against what is held to be scientifically true.

I believe the movie does a good job of creating the emotional effect of Carroll's art horror. Several times throughout the film I felt dread or disgust toward either Karswell or the demon. The scene where the hypnotized man freaks out and jumps out of the window to commit suicide rid him self of just the thought of seeing the demon again was particularly disturbing and frightening.

The plot of the film seems to best fit the complex discovery model. It starts with Holden's arrival to the curious death of his colleague. The movie then spends the majority of his time with the back and forth denial and then belief of Holden in black magic. I think the movie did an excellent job of making a gradual shift of Holden's original self righteous complete denial of black magic to Holden slowly being less and less able to explain the happenings in the world around him. This peaks when Holden actively tries to pass the runes to Karswell because he believes he may be in real danger. The discovery is completed when Karswell is killed by the demon, even though Holden is not 100% sure it was the demon and not the train.

The most suspenseful scene for me was when Holden was sneaking around Karswell's house and a monster like hand kept popping up. This was scary and suspenseful for many reasons. The first was that it was the hand of a unknown being. It was too large and unnatural looking to be Karswell's and far to small to be the demon we see in other parts of the fill. The entire time Holden was in the study, particularly after the doors mysteriously closed, I was waiting for this new monster to show itself, but nothing ever became of it. The complete uncertainty was what made it so suspenseful.

I believe one major theme of the movie was the danger of being closed minded. Holden is a man of science but a little too arrogant about his beliefs. He continually writes off events as coincidence or trickery. Some are justified but other are truly unexplainable by Holden's scientific logic. In the end Holden's arrogance nearly gets him killed, as he decides to take a chance belief in the black magic and pass the runes onto Karswell.

I think Tourner did an excellent job of showing as little as possible to keep the audience guess at different events. If he had been able to no show the monster as he planned I think the film would have been much more scary. Still the hand on the railing, cat turning into a panther, sudden wind storm, and fog in the forest gave the audience plenty to guess at as far is the real presence of black magic or an elaborate hoax. The film had an excellent soundtrack that built strong suspense and made me jump on more than one occasion.