Night of the Demon · reception & legacy

1957 · Jacques Tourneur

How Night of the Demon has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

Shipped as a trimmed-down B-picture double-biller in the US (retitled Curse of the Demon), it's since been reappraised as one of the greatest British horror films ever made — a masterclass in suggestion that horror directors and critics now cite constantly.

What's debated

The eternal fight: does actually showing the demon — which producer Hal E. Chester insisted on over Tourneur's objections — ruin the film's carefully built ambiguity, or is the monster secretly great?

Its footprint

Kate Bush sampled its line 'It's in the trees! It's coming!' to open 'Hounds of Love', and Rocky Horror's 'Science Fiction/Double Feature' immortalised it with 'Dana Andrews said prunes gave him the runes' — a horror film that lives on in pop music.

Where it stands

A cornerstone of the classic-horror canon and a 'you must see this' for anyone tracing the art of the unseen — the connoisseur's British horror film.

★ Did you know? Director Jacques Tourneur and screenwriter Charles Bennett wanted the demon kept to suggestion, but producer Hal E. Chester had explicit monster shots inserted anyway — Bennett was so furious he later said that if Chester walked up his driveway, he'd shoot him.