Night of the Demon.

This film seems to capture Carroll's idea of what a horror is by way of what a monster is. This movie could have two possible monsters: The demon itself and Karswell. The demon is an obvious example of Carroll's definition of a monster. It is both disgusting in the fact that it is ugly, big and gross and it is frightening because it shreds its victims into pieces like a wild animal. Karswell also captures the spirit of Carroll's monsters. Karswell is frightening. He delivers scary messages, he allows death to come to those around him and he dabbles in the dark arts. He is also disgusting in the sense that he is so into the dark arts. It is completely unnatural for a man to be able to control the weather. This makes him disgusting. I think that this is a horror, yes. There was a great sense of fear and suspense while watching the film. I found Karswell particularly terrifying in the ways that he manipulated those around him all while seeming to have good intentions.

The film certainly evoked an emotional affect in me. It creates a great deal of suspense which keeps the watcher entertained as well as fearful. Additionally, the demon itself creates a sense of dread and foreboding in the watcher.

The story tends to follow the complex discovery plot that Carroll outlines in his book. The four elements of the complex discovery plot are 1. onset of a horrific event, 2. discovery of its cause, 3. confirmation of its cause and 4. final confrontation. Night of the Demon has all four of these. The first is played out in the death of Professor Harrington, the second is the largest part of the movie where all the dealings of Karswell and the parchment come into play, and the third and fourth coincide with Karswell being slaughtered by the demon.

The most suspenseful scene had to be when Karswell and Holden where on the train together with Joanna at the end of the movie. It made sense for something terrible to happen and the watchers is just waiting for it. Carroll says that to create horror, the moral must be improbable and the immoral must be probable. That's exactly what this moment captured. The immoral, Holden passing his parchment on to someone else to save his life, is exactly what happened. The scene was tense as there were only a few minutes left on the clock before someone had to die.

I feel like I am overreaching slightly by trying to tag a moral onto this story. I don't sense anything social or political trying to be said for the film, but I could come up with a moral. The moral that can be drawn from the movie is not to mess with something you can't fully understand. This is played out by both Karswell and Holden. Karswell delves deeply into the black arts and it comes back to bite him in the end. Holden is not exempt from this moral just because he doesn't play with magic. Holden messes around with hypnosis and allows a patient of his to be drugged by means he obviously cannot understand fully and this ends with the man's death.

Tourneur most notably, for me anyways, uses music to heighten the horror in the film. He uses cliche horror music, but it is still quite effective in scaring an audience or increases the feeling of suspense. He also uses smaller, less noticeable things to create horror. The way the flames barely lick the parchment as it throws itself against the grate created a great deal of suspense, the way he showed the demon as little as possible made it all the scarier, and, finally the way he created Karswell is the scariest of all. Karswell was this man who looked well intentioned. He played with children and puppies, but deep down he was a dark and terrifying man. The way Tourneur directed the actor on how to play the character added a great deal of horror to the film.