I know that a thorough analysis of Night of the Demon is to be posted this coming Friday, but I've decided to offer some thoughts in the meantime -namely, what the film could have been like, had the appearance of the monster never happened...
If we pretend that the monster's visage never graced the screen (as Tourneur would have had it anyway), I feel that the role of the monster throughout the entire film has been changed, perhaps even shifted from the demon to another entity. Without having seen the demon at the start of the film, the urgency to avoid the demon itself is lessened, and it is rather the prospect of a sealed fate, the idea that these runes have doomed Holden to an inescapable and unpleasant end, becomes that which is feared; instead of the demon being run from, it is the runes which demand attention. This is what I think drove the original story, "Casting the Runes," in which it is the fear of the unknown which drives the characters, rather than the fear of the particular means of destruction.
I also think that with the emphasis placed upon the runes, instead of the demon, explanation of the plot lends itself well to Lovecraft's theory of "cosmic awe." The violation of the natural order, of the moral order, is not created by the demon, but by the idea of the runes' ability to control that which is supposed to be beyond control -fate. This supports Karswell's role as a semi-monster himself. When he is presented as the man in control, when the rune's are his tools and the demon at his disposal, he is the monster -an interstitial being in that he is beyond man with his ability to dictate the fates of others. This also explains the audience's ability to sympathize with a character who is shown to be human and flawed, for when he admits he has very little control over the runes and the demon, and when he finally meets his end by them, he ceases to be the monster and the role of the antagonist falls again to the runes and this unfathomable, untamed power that they represent.
The sense of "cosmic awe" encountered in Night of the Demon (sans demon's cameo) is much like the naturalistic sense of fate one finds in Melville's Moby Dick. Karswell might just as well be an Ahab-type character, attempting to exert his dominance over a force against which he stands no chance, a force which, in the end, conquers him as it has countless others.
And all this never actually happens because the demon is shown within the first 10 minutes... Oh well.
1 comment:
I agree with your analysis that the flim Night of the Demon would have been much better had the demon not graced the screen, especially in our time now. WHile it is a deeper and better analysis that you gave about why it would have been better to the story had the demon not graced the screen, there is also the fact that to appearance of the demon itself is laughable. In comparison to the mosern day special effects available now, this particular demon is hardly visually horrific.
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