One of the rites of passage for young boys is the legendary campfire story time. Gathered at a fire in the middle of the woods, they would scare each other with the most terrifying stories that they could muster. Dead of Night recalls such gatherings by presenting a portmanteau of chillings stories. They are linked by a overarching story of a man who travels to a country house for a party. Once there, he realizes that all of the guests have previously appeared in his nightmares. Fascinated, the guests ask him to recall his ghastly night visions. These stories range from the comical (a pair of golf loving best friends can't be separated, even by death, from their favorite game) to the horrific (a ventriloquist's dummy takes on an apparent life of its own). Each of these stories shift drastically in tone and style, mostly due to the film's use of different directors for each segment. Therefore, the overall film feels disjointed. But it's a delightful piece of early horror and well worth the watch by scary movie aficionados.
7/10
Love your comparison of this film to the swapping-stories-around-the-campfire ritual - now that you bring it up, the movie really does follow such a structure; and it winds it up in an interesting (and frightening) way. I think this is one of the best of the classic-horror ghost story films. Redgrave's performance in the ventriloquist story always reveals new facets whenever I watch it.
ReplyDeleteBrrrr....don't remind me about that doll...
ReplyDeleteThat was a particularly scary story for me. When I was little, I had a clown doll just like the dummy in the film that I was terrified of...let's just say this film brought up some...unpleasant memories....