Movie |
Skeptic | England
Disclaimer: All content and media belong to original content streaming platforms/owners like Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar, Amazon Prime Videos, JioCinema, SonyLIV etc. 91mobiles entertainment does not claim any rights to the content and only aggregate the content along with the service providers links.
Best DVD | 2002
Jacques Tourneur never planned to show the monster, but to leave it instead to the audience's imagination. However, the studio insisted that the monster be shown, and added it in post-production, allegedly without Tourneur's consent, approval, or involvement. "The scenes where we really see the demon were shot without me. All except one: I shot the sequence in the woods where Andrews is pursued by this sort of cloud." [Tourneur himself in Midi-Minuit Fantastique 5.65]. He also said, "It should have been unveiled bit by bit without it ever really being shown." [in Cinefantsatique; '73.]
Dana Andrews was so impressed with director Jacques Tourneur that when he returned to the United States he had Tourneur direct his next film, The Fearmakers (1958).
Beginning in the 1980s, Columbia Pictures replaced their edited 83-minute U.S. version with the uncut original 95-minute version whilst retaining the U.S. title "Curse of the Demon." The various video releases, and pay-TV showings, have used this restored version. A DVD release contained both versions.
The scene where the little boy dressed as a skeleton spooks both Karswell and Dana Andrews, by appearing behind the tree and screaming, uses the kind of sudden jolting effect that director Jacques Tourneur did with the at first silent bus, followed by the sudden noise of the bus, in Cat People (1942). It's said that this process, also used in The Leopard Man (1943), was inspired by Tourneur's game-changing employer, producer Val Lewton.
This British production became regarded as one of the best horror films of the 1950s. The image of the demon from this film became an iconic image for 1950s horror films.
"Professor Henry Harrington: It's in the trees! It's coming!"
"Joanna Harrington: You could learn a lot from children. They believe in things in the dark, although we tell them it's not so. Maybe we've been fooling them."
