Jacques Tourneur was one of the very first directors who realized that in horror films, what you DON'T see is more terrifying than what you DO see. His greatest and most influential film, Cat People, basically pioneered this concept. Here, in Night of the Demon, Tourneur reaffirms that universal truth concerning fear. The film follows an American psychologist as he travels to England to investigate a suspected Satanic cult. A die-hard skeptic, he refuses to believe that ghosts, demons, and curses exist...at least until he becomes marked for death by the very cult that he investigates. Night of the Demon is a fabulous film and a landmark horror movie. However, it does suffer from post-production meddling by the studio who shoehorned in two scenes that actually showed the titular demon. Originally, Tourneur didn't want to show it. My problem isn't that they show the monster. After all, many films that flirt with the idea of whether or not the supernatural exists end with a shot revealing the monster: The Blair Witch Project, The Exorcist, and, more recently, Paranormal Activity. My problem is that they show the creature only about five minutes into the film, completely erasing the suspense and destroying the ambiguity that Tourneur wanted to invoke. However, I'd be lying by saying that I wish that they kept the monster out. The final scene where the demon kills the head of the cult is genuinely one of the most chilling things that I have ever seen in a horror film. Still, Tourneur does succeed by injecting the film with a grim dread and fear that became his trademark and made him one of the most important horror directors of all time.
8/10
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