Director: Jacques Tourneur
Screenplay: Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester, based on the short story "Casting the Runes" by M. R. James
Starring: Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis
Running Time: 82 minutes (96 minutes original cut)
Genre: Horror
American psychologist John Holden (Andrews) arrives for a conference in England, and learns that Professor Harrington (Maurice Denham), one of the professors he was supposed to meet has died, in what appears to be a strange accident. Holden discovers that Harrington was intending to discredit occultist Dr. Julian Karswell (MacGinnis) as a fraud. Firmly skeptical on all things supernatural, Holden continues the professor's work, with the aid of the Harrington's niece, Joanna (Cummins). However, soon Holden's rationality is put to the test when Karswell places a curse on him, and Holden begins to suspect that he is pursued by a powerful force.
This is an adaptation of the story "Casting the Runes" by acclaimed British academic and ghost story writer M. R. James. James and director Jacques Tourneur would seem to be a good fit. Tourneur built a reputation with films like Cat People (1942) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943), in which the supernatural was hinted at rather than shown, with deep shadows and skewed camera angles, and James would build his ghost stories carefully and deliberately with daily life gradually being dominated by a supernatural force. However, in this film, the monster, a "Fire Demon", is shown in all it's rubbery glory right at the beginning and right at the end, apparently against Tourneur's wishes. The demon's appearances do feel shoehorned into the film, and it would certainly be more effective without it's appearance at the beginning, which takes away a lot of the film's suspense as to whether any of the apparently supernatural occurances were genuine or not, although the demon has become something of an iconic image. However, even with that it is a strong and suspenseful film, with some striking visual style. The performances are solid for the most part, despite the unfortunate decision to use white actor Peter Elliott to play Professor Kumar. Niall MacGinnis adds an element of camp humour to the sinister Professor Karswell. The film was shortened and retitled Curse of the Demon for it's US release, and some of the dialogue is sampled for the Kate Bush song "Hounds of Love", and it is also referenced in the opening song for Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).
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