Does anyone know what this old b&w horror movie is?!
Question: All i can remember is the plot. This reporter or detective, i can't remember, goes to this mansion to investigate these murders. Anyway the gist of it is that this cult slips people this piece of paper with an incantation on it and if they are the last person to read it before midnight they die.
It is really old, black and white and i can't remember a single actor. I saw it like 10years ago on tv and i thought it was awesome for its time. Does anyone know what it is called?
Answers: All i can remember is the plot. This reporter or detective, i can't remember, goes to this mansion to investigate these murders. Anyway the gist of it is that this cult slips people this piece of paper with an incantation on it and if they are the last person to read it before midnight they die.
It is really old, black and white and i can't remember a single actor. I saw it like 10years ago on tv and i thought it was awesome for its time. Does anyone know what it is called?
...you're definitely describing the compelling and intriguing cult 1957 horror entry, "Night of the Demon", alternately titled, recut and reissued in the US, as "Curse of the Demon"; the barely seen creature, which each victim sees before perishing, emerging from a billow of smoke, is one of the most recognizable pop culture horror images, despite the obscurity of the film...
...check it out, below
house on haunted hill?
CURSE OF THE DEMON (1957)
information about film:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050766/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_th...
IMDB has this as "Night of the Demon", but I have never seen it run under this name. All title sequences I've seen, including my VHS of this has "Curse of the Demon". Under either name, it's an excellent film starring Dana Andrews.
It's based on a story titled "Casting the Runes" by Montague R. James aka M.R. James. The story is wonderful, too, but can be difficult to track down. I have an anthology of horror stories that includes it.
Whenever someone asks for a list of horror films, I always include this one! Although the director didn't like showing the demon, I think it's quite effective, the puppetry giving it a bizarre movement unlike anything in the natural world. The twittering sound and the swirling smoke as he's being pursued through the woods are especially effective!
I wouldn't call the demon barely seen since we see it twice, once when it kills the heroine's father and later as it towers over the train and claims the sorcerer as its last (one hopes) victim. Again, director Jacques Tourneur argued against showing it completely, something he had learned from producer Val Lewton, who always argued that horror lay in shadows and hints.
If you like this film, try watching Lewton's works:
The Cat People (original) (also directed by Tourneur)
Curse of the Cat People
The Leopard Man (directed by Tourneur)
I Walked With a Zombie (directed by Tourneur) (Don't judge the film by the title! It's an excellent film, true to the mythic concept of zombies, not the flesh-eating creatures that George Romero turned them into but victims of a certain ceremony.)
Isle of the Dead
Bedlam
The Body Snatcher (nothing to do with the sci fi films)
The Seventh Victim