Tea, crumpets and ghost stories
Thursday, October 5, 2017
The granddaddy of all anthology horror films is arguably "Dead of Night," a lesser-known and rarely seen outing from Britain released in 1945. Martin Scorsese ranked this picture among his 11 scariest horror films of all time, and it places high on other reputable lists as well. Creaky in some spots, excessively padded in others, and certainly tame by today's Tinseltown terror standards, this film nonetheless gets under your skin – if you give it a chance. Among the major discussion topics at last evening's CineVerse meeting are the following:
WHAT DID YOU FIND CURIOUS, SURPRISING OR OUT OF THE ORDINARY ABOUT THIS FILM?
- It varies in tone and style – some of the episodes are scarier than others, while at least one is downright humorous and may not fit tonally with the rest of the picture (the ghost golfing vignette). Interestingly, each story was helmed by a different director – with four in total. Arguably, that helps distinguish each episode from one another in terms of visuals, pacing, themes, and overall feel.
- Anthology films in general can be risky: just as one bad apple can spoil the barrel, one lesser episode in an anthology can sour the rest of the movie for the audience. Then again, word-of-mouth about only one or two good episodes in an otherwise mediocre anthology horror film can be enough to keep it alive and resonant.
- It’s surprisingly creepy and effective as a good horror movie, despite being released overseas in the mid-1940s. Remember that Britain was not known for horror pictures – in fact, between 1942 in 1945, the government barred the import and viewing of all H-rated pictures (meaning H for horror), likely due to the brutality of World War II and to keep morale and spirits up at home.
- Dead of Night carries on the tradition of the classic English ghost story; it feels very British, yet appeals to Americans because we have an affinity for the English ghost story and famous writers of this genre, including Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, M.R. James, Henry James, and Algernon Blackwood.
- It features a compelling circular wraparound story that serves as a framing device . The epilogue provides a twist ending that makes the viewer feel unsettled and helps the overall film resonate more with viewers.
- This film apparently inspired Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho; consider that Psycho uses mirrors in several scenes to depict a split personality or some off-screen menace that could come into view at any moment. Psycho also ends with a psychotic individual in custody and overwhelmed by the dominant side of his split personality – similar to Maxwell being capped in a sanitarium and talking in his ventriloquist dummy voice.
- Speaking of Hitchcock, this movie brings back three memorable actors from the master of suspense’s last great film made in Britain: The Lady Vanishes – Michael Redgrave, and Naunton Wayne as Caldicott and Basil Radford as Charters; the latter two characters became a popular duo who starred in their own films after The Lady Vanishes, and the actors reappear here as similar characters.
- Apparently, the film also influenced the Big Bang Theory. Writer Jez Connelly wrote: “Astronomer Royal Sir Fred Hoyle and his Cambridge colleagues Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold were inspired by a viewing of Dead of Night when formulating their pre-Big Bang ‘Steady State’ theory of the Cosmos. ‘My God! It’s a cosmology. Maybe there’s something in this cyclical cosmology’ wrote Hoyle in his diary after witnessing the film’s famously elliptical narrative, and so was born a theory explaining life, the Universe and everything based on a horror film about one man’s never-ending nightmare.”
- Lastly, this film is memorable for attempting something rare, especially for an older film: allowing the twist to play out while the end credits roll. That’s risky, considering that some viewers may walk out or turn off the movie as soon as they see the first credit text appear.
- Perhaps it’s because, among all the tales told in Dead of Night, it allows for either a psychological or supernatural reading; in other words, it’s the most ambiguous and subjective. There’s a suggestion here that Hugo is really alive and autonomous; it’s also quite possible that Max is deranged and suffering from a split-personality disorder, only imagining that his dummy is alive.
- Consider that this may have been the first instance of ventriloquist dummy horror in film; many imitators have followed, including Magic, Dead Silence, and Devil Doll. Prior to this film, ventriloquist dummies like Edgar Bergen’s Charlie McCarthy were considered cute, comedic and harmless. This story helped introduce the creepy notion that dolls can be possessed by supernatural forces and should not be trusted. That’s a formula that’s worked countless times in pop culture, from the Twilight Zone’s Talking Tina to Chucky to Annabelle.
- This vignette also features an A-list British actor for the time, Michael Redgrave, who gives an outstanding performance – probably the best in the movie.
- There are also fascinating psycho-sexual dynamics at work in this story, as Max seems to be involved in a strange love triangle with Hugo and his rival Klee.
- The Topper films
- Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors
- Tales from the Crypt, the Vault of Horror, and Asylum – all anthology horror films by Amicus Studios
- Hitchcock’s Psycho, Vertigo and The Lady Vanishes