Night of the Demon is a Carrollian work of horror as well as a Lovecraftian one. It possesses a fearsome and disgusting monster that natural science does not countenance (the titular demon); and the idea of an unseen world of terrible powers coexisting alongside our own is very Lovecraftian, even if the demon is not on the same scale of horror as Yog-Sothoth, Cthulhu, or Nyarthalotep. However, Night of the Demon is more Carrollian than Lovecraftian.
The movie succeeds in inducing art-horror; one is repelled by and scared of the demon, yet remains curious about is origins, powers, motives, etc. The fear effect of the demon is undercut by its actual appearance, however. By giving the demon a rather comically evil physical form, the amount of fear it can generate is diminished. Tourneur's original plan to show only 4 frames of the demon attacking Karswell as the train goes by would have been far more terrifying. The demon causes the most fear, I think, during the chase scene in the woods, when we are shown only the sentient smoke and the invisible being putting footprints in the ground (an effect that would have been quite terrifying if applied to the railroad tracks scene).
The movie is less successful when it comes to evoking cosmic fear. While there are elements of fear and moral revulsion, there is no wonder to speak of. The demon is not powerful enough to evoke the wonder caused by a deity, dark or otherwise. Compared to Cthulhu or the Dunwich Horror the demon is rather tame, only attacking those it is set upon by the runes, and killing its victims in a rather gruesome but boring manner. The demon is not a world destroying, mind-rending, cosmic horror. It is rather a supernatural assassin that only attacks when told. While the existence of a world of powers unknown to most men is certainly Lovecraftian, the demon does not possess enough power to instill true cosmic horror in the viewer.
The film's plot fits takes various elements from Carroll's models of the Complex Discovery Plot and Overreacher Plot, but does not utilize them all in the way Carroll usually does. For instance, there is a clear Onset of the monster when the first scientist is killed, but there is not true Discovery, Confirmation, or Confrontation. Joanna believes in the power of the runes, but she never discovers the demon itself. Holden comes to believe in the demon too, but at the last minute he decides not to Confirm its existence. Nor does Holden Confront the demon; rather, the Confrontation is with Karswell and the demon is allowed to kill its victim. Karswell himself acts as an overreacher, but never seems to offer a justification for what he is doing. He also does not ever think things have gone wrong and attempt to destroy the result of his experiment, though he pays the price for it. The overall questions of the narrative are similar to those asked by those two plot types: will Joanna convince Holden of rune's efficacy? If so, will Holden find a way to beat Karswell? Will Karswell's "experiment" go horribly wrong? Will he try to make an end of it? Thus the film's plot is a combination of the Complex Discovery Plot and the Overreacher plot with its own unique take on the ideas.
Because the film utilizes elements of the Complex Discovery Plot, it contains a great deal of suspense. The most suspenseful scene in my opinion is the confrontation between Holden and Karswell on the train. The clock is ticking, but both Holden and Karswell know what is going on. Karswell is smart, and very suspicious of Holden; how can Holden possibly pass the runes back? With only 2 minutes to go, it seems likely that Holden will be slain (though we may take comfort in the fact that Karswell may be as well). The odds of Holden outsmarting Karswell are slim, and the suspense builds even further when the police show up to arrest Karswell, possibly removing any chance of Holden surviving at all. The suspense is quite Carrollian in nature: the odds of victory are greatly skewed towards the side of evil, but we still hope for good to snatch victory from the jaws of the demon.
Due to the rather goofy appearance of the demon, the film draws most of its scares from Tourneur's cinematic techniques. As has been said before, Tourneur wanted to invoke Nothing is Scarier to make the demon (or lack thereof) more menacing, and during the chase scene in the woods, I felt that the appearance of the smoking footprints was much more effective than the actual demon puppet at conveying the demon's malign presence. Had Tourneur been allowed to do the rest of the demon scenes that way, I believe the film would have been a lot scarier. As I said earlier, imagine if the train tracks started to become smoldering wrecks as something strode upon them.
Another one of Tourneur's techniques that is quite effective at eliciting scares revolves around the sudden occurrence of something mysterious that remains unexplained. The scene in which Holden is stalked while breaking into Karswell's house is very well done. The sudden appearance of the hand has raw shock value, but the terror is compounded when the camera changes angles to show that nothing could have been there. On top of that, the hand is never explained; it is not Karswell's or his mother's, so whose was it? In another scene, both Joanna and the audience ask the question "What made them stop?" as the rune-covered parchment mysteriously ceases trying to burn itself.
I did not see any underlying message in the film, except perhaps the simple Aesop that "Satanism will get you killed". I would be interested in reading other people's opinion on whether or not there is some deeper message in the film. Comment away!
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