31 Nights of Halloween Horror - Night 30 - Dead of Night
Dead of Night
87 mins.
Dir. Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer
UK/1945
We round out our anthology double feature with this classic film from 1945 which was one of the first horror anthology films with a wrap around story. Not to be confused with the other anthology film with the same title released in 1977. Watch this one in the Dead of Night.
The wrap around story in this movie deals with an architect arriving at a country house, once there he meets a room full of people and comes to the conclusion that he has met all these people before in one of his dreams. As they all discuss the possibilities of this, each character reveals a situation they have been in dealing with the supernatural.
The first story is about a race car driver that more or less cheats death and is then followed by death which once he sees, makes him make different choices in life leading him on a different path.
Next up is a more lighthearted tale about two golfers, one becoming a ghost to haunt the other based on a story by H.G. Wells.
Third story is about a Christmas party where a woman goes into another room from where the party is being held to console a crying boy who turns out was murdered by his sister years ago. This story was actually loosely based on true events.
The last two stories involve a ventriloquist dummy who has a mind of his own and takes over the show and a haunted mirror where you look into it there is a different room and the events of that room carry over into the other side of the mirror.
And the wrap around story ends with the architect waking up finding out he was having a dream and drives to the farmhouse like in the beginning of the movie.
There are a few reasons Dead of Night is such an important film. For one, it was a British horror film made at a time when horror films were heavily censored in that country, even before the Video Nasties era. While DoN is extremely tame by todays standards. There are no monsters, or blood or effects really, it all relies on its creepy factor. Secondly this film also predates the EC comics of Tales from the Crypt and like and sets the ground floor for a lot of the horror anthologies that have come after, like Tales that Witness Madness, Dr. Terrors House of Horrors and others. The stories in this film may seem like you have seen them before, but considering the time this movie was made, most of them were probably influenced by this film.
Tomorrow's Halloween, rest up we have a big day ahead of us.
Dead of Night
87 mins.
Dir. Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer
UK/1945
We round out our anthology double feature with this classic film from 1945 which was one of the first horror anthology films with a wrap around story. Not to be confused with the other anthology film with the same title released in 1977. Watch this one in the Dead of Night.
The wrap around story in this movie deals with an architect arriving at a country house, once there he meets a room full of people and comes to the conclusion that he has met all these people before in one of his dreams. As they all discuss the possibilities of this, each character reveals a situation they have been in dealing with the supernatural.
The first story is about a race car driver that more or less cheats death and is then followed by death which once he sees, makes him make different choices in life leading him on a different path.
Next up is a more lighthearted tale about two golfers, one becoming a ghost to haunt the other based on a story by H.G. Wells.
Third story is about a Christmas party where a woman goes into another room from where the party is being held to console a crying boy who turns out was murdered by his sister years ago. This story was actually loosely based on true events.
The last two stories involve a ventriloquist dummy who has a mind of his own and takes over the show and a haunted mirror where you look into it there is a different room and the events of that room carry over into the other side of the mirror.
And the wrap around story ends with the architect waking up finding out he was having a dream and drives to the farmhouse like in the beginning of the movie.
There are a few reasons Dead of Night is such an important film. For one, it was a British horror film made at a time when horror films were heavily censored in that country, even before the Video Nasties era. While DoN is extremely tame by todays standards. There are no monsters, or blood or effects really, it all relies on its creepy factor. Secondly this film also predates the EC comics of Tales from the Crypt and like and sets the ground floor for a lot of the horror anthologies that have come after, like Tales that Witness Madness, Dr. Terrors House of Horrors and others. The stories in this film may seem like you have seen them before, but considering the time this movie was made, most of them were probably influenced by this film.
Tomorrow's Halloween, rest up we have a big day ahead of us.
Comments
Post a Comment