Night of the Demon

According to Carrol, the Horror Genre has two main components. It involves a monster and an emotional experience of the audience, which Carrol calls 'Art Horror'. Carrol insists that a work of Horror is "designed to elicit a certain kind of affect" (pg. 15) that being the emotional 'Art Horror'. So, if a work does not attempt to evoke this reaction, than it is not Horror. The monster component has sub-components. That is, their are specifications to make a monster a Horror monster. His main specification is that the other characters in the work must perceive the monster as Abnormal, "as disturbances of the natural order" (pg. 16)

If we are to try and put the movie into this genre, according to Carrol, I think it's necessary to look at point of view. If taken from Holden's point of view, then yes, the monster/demon is unnatural. However, to Kalswell, the demon fits into his realm of reality. He believes in it as a natural dark force. It is menacing, yes, but not unnatural to him. The movie as a whole seems to fit with Carrol's idea of Horror though, since it was intended to provoke an emotional response of Horror from the audience, and at least one character sees the demon as an unnatural monster. However, I feel the aspects of the movie that make it fit with the Horror genre are due to the edits done by the producer, Hal E. Chester, such as adding the scenes with the monster.

Without these scenes with the monster, the movie would have fit more with Carrol's idea of tale of dread or possibly tale of terror. In these forms, it is based more on psychological phenomenon rather than monsters, which I feel is more what Tourneur wanted the movie to demonstrate.

The film does seem to elicit an emotional effect, though everyone will respond differently. I feel one of the key parts of Carrol's description of 'Art Horror' is that it is the goal in producing a work of horror. That does not mean that the goal is necessarily successful, and this can be attributed to the individual's response. According to Lovecraft, what Horror produces is a feeling of Cosmic fear. I do not think the movie evokes this especially for the audience, though it seems for the characters there is a sense of awe and fascination with the idea of the demon and the curse. For Holden especially, there seems to be an obsession with proving that the demon doesn't exist, yet he slowly is struck by it's reality.

The plot of the movie can be seen as a mix of both a complex discovery plot and an over-reacher plot, though it fits with the overarching theme of a complex discovery plot more. In the movie, there is an onset (with the initial sighting of the demon chasing and killing a man), there is discovery (when Holden first witnesses being chased by a foggy creature), their is confirmation (when Holden realizes that he will die and tries to give the runes back to Kalswell), and finally there is confrontation (both when Holden tries to give the slip of paper back to Kalswell, and when Kalswell meets the demon). In this way the movie fits with complex discovery. If, however, we were to shift point of view as with the idea of the monster, Kalwell demonstrates an over-reacher plot. He acts as the "mad scientist" or "necromancer" who criticizes science, which is represented by Holden's obsession with proving that the curse doesn't exist. The key theme of an over-reacher plot is that there are some things better left unknown, and since the last line in the movie is Holden saying how he would rather not know the truth of what happened to Kalwell, this makes the movie as a whole seem to fit more with that theme. The main theme of a complex discovery plot is that there are more things in heaven and earth than are found in our knowledge, which is also shown in the movie by Holden's acceptance that maybe his science cannot explain the events surrounding the runes and the demon.

The most suspenseful scene in the movie would have to be when Holden is trying to give back the slip of paper. According to Carrol, suspense raises questions that were set up from earlier events. The question raised must be well structured and have neatly opposed alternatives. In this case the question is, will Holden get Kalswell to take the paper and thus be able to save his own life, or not?

It seems the main themes of the movie are based on the over-reacher plot. That is, somethings should be left unknown. This is demonstrated through Holden refusing to see what actually happened to Kalswell at the end of the movie. The movie also supports a balance of science and the supernatural. Throughout the film, Holden continually resists any form of belief in the supernatural and it is this stubbornness that gets him so close to being killed by the demon. Everyone around him is willing to accept the curse, along with their beliefs in science, but he is not. It isn't until he admits there might be something unexplainable going on that he is able to free himself from the curse.

Tourneur himself, seemed to focus more on terror than Carrol's idea of horror. He wanted to audience to ask themselves, "did I see it or didn't I?" rather than to evoke a horrific feeling. His cinematic techniques included the sequence in the woods when Holden is first being chased by the demon. In his scene, the demon is never actually shown. Instead, there is a suspense built up from the creeping in of the fog, as well as the questions it raises. I think Tourneur was going for a more psychological suspense rather than horror. He also had a few scenes where he mirrored the characters of Kalswell and Holden. He did this through mirroring the angles and lighting they were shot in. Because of this Tourneur is putting more emphasis on the characteristics of the people in the movie. He presented a sort of binary between the two and showed how the two overlap. He was much less focused on the demon, not wanting to show it at all in the film.

Overall, I think the film does fit with Carrol's idea of Horror, but this was against the main goal of Tourneur. Tourneur was not happy with the addition of actually seeing the monster, and wanted the audience to end with a psychological question of what actually happened and what they believed happened. In my personal opinion, psychological horror is much more effective at creating a strong emotional response, so in that way, by getting rid of the monster, the movie would have fit with Carrol's concept of 'art horror' better, though it would have gotten rid of his need for the monster.