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92 comments in total

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32 out of 33 people found the following comment useful :-
The Original British Horror Omnibus/Anthology, 27 May 2001
Author: BaronBl00d (baronbl00d@aol.com) from NC

Dead of Night is responsible for so many films made in the horror genre, because it was the first that took a huge gamble and pieced several unconnected stories together within a narrative that loosely keeps them together. Tales From The Crypt, Vault of Horror, Tales That Witness Madness, The House That Dripped Blood, Torture Garden, The Monster Club, Creepshow, Tales From the Darkside: the Movie are just a few of the films that owe part of their existence to this little British film. The frame story details how a man goes to the country for a weekend only to say he has been there before and met the people there before in his recurring dream. He is thrust into a discussion between those that believe in his dream and one lone doctor(psychiatrist) who seems able to explain all phenomena in a scientific way. Each of the guests then in turn tells a story about their brush with the supernatural. Most of the stories are very inventive(although by modern standards cliched as they have been copied many times)and entertaining. Two of the stories really stand-out. The first is about a mirror that shows you a different room as you look into it, and the other about a ventriloquist with a split personality. The other stories are good, and one is humorous(perhaps out of place but fun nonetheless). Acting is solid throughout with Mervyn Johns as the man subjected to the same dream over and over again. Richard Valk excels as the doctor, and Michael Redgrave is outstanding as the man able to give the gift of speech to a "dummy." Also of interest is the pairing of Basil Radford and Naughton Wayne form Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. They DO compliment each other so very nicely. A wonderful, eerie film.

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41 out of 52 people found the following comment useful :-
A CHERISHED CHILDHOOD MEMORY OF FEAR, 28 December 2003
Author: Randall Phillip (monstermonkeyhead@yahoo.com) from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I was fortunate enough to see this movie the way it was meant to

be seen: I was about 13 and my brother was 11. We were

supposed to go to bed, but we snuck and watched this movie. We

were also fortunate enough to see it on PBS (of all places!) uncut,

without commercial interruption. Perhaps, the fear of being caught

by our parents added to the experience. We sat by the flickering

light of the TV set (on low volume) in the dark. Needless to say, by

the end of the movie we thought our heads would explode with

fear. I thought my eyes would bulge out of my sockets. It was a

definitive bonding experience for me and my brother. Strange that

fear should be so relished! Up to this day, when posed with the

question, "You wouldn't do that?" Our response is in that devilish

high-pitched voice, "Wouldn't I? WOULDN'T I??" Thanks to Anchor

Bay putting out the dvd double feature of Dead of Night with Queen

of Spades (also excellent!), I have just watched it again and that

old friend fear comes right back. Hugo Fitch lives on!

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36 out of 45 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the best horror films ever!, 20 September 2000

Author: Horror-Fan from Bridgewater, MA, USA.

This is one of my favorite horror film along with Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan. Like Kwaidan, this is also a horror anthology. But this directed by four directors and are not separate like Kwaidan's are. This film begins with an architect arriving at a remote farm house for a party. When he's there he feels like he's been here before. Then everyone starts telling scary stories. Each of these stories are shot by different directors. The first story "Christmas Party" is about a girl at a Christmas Party who finds a hidden flight of stairs. She goes up them and finds a boy who's crying. The second story "The Haunted Mirror" is about an engaged couple who marry and the wife buys him a mirror. Needless to say, it is not a normal mirror with a horrifying past. The third story is called "The Hearse Driver". It is about a man who dreams he sees a hearse go by and a creepy man iside tells him "There's room for one more". This becomes a premonition of things to come. I heard a story like this one in a scary story book. The fourth story, "Golfing Story" is about two golfers who love a girl so much they hold a special golfing tournament. The winner gets to marry the girl the loser dies. One of the men wins and the other is forced to drown himself. The fifth and final story "The Ventriloquist" is about a ventriloquist who thinks his dummy is out to get him.

As I said this could be one of the best horror films ever. Forget Jason or Freddy or Chuckie, this is the real thing. It certainly is the best B&W horror film. It is very creepy and it really works well in imparting the feeling of the supernatural. ESPECIALLY the "Ventrioloquist" tale. That is chilling enough to scare the bejebers out of you. If you are a fan of new high tech garbage slasher flicks, then I DO NOT recommend this to you. But if you really love all horror films, classic or new, then you will treasure this creepy classic. Rating: ***** out of *****

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18 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
A prime example of a well-made horror-anthology, 27 July 2006

Author: Camera Obscura from Leiden, The Dutch Mountains

Anthology n.: a collection of selected literary pieces or passages of works of art or music.

This classic horror-anthology from Britain's Ealing Studios is composed of four separate stories, composed around a group of strangers that is mysteriously gathered at a country estate where each reveals their chilling tale of the supernatural. But even after these frightening tales are told, does one final nightmare await them all?

The horror-anthology has proved a difficult sub-genre, usually made with only limited success, because it's notoriously difficult to get it right. If only one of the stories fails to deliver, the whole piece is dragged down. But this multi-part horror effort from Britain's Ealing Studios still proves to be very effective and justifiably still is one of the most revered and successful horror anthologies ever made. It features appearances by many of the best British actors of it's day, including Mervyn Johns, Ralph Michael, Basil Radford and Michael Redgrave. With four different directors at the helm, not all four segments are equally effective and are quite different in tone, but they are all good in their own right. The standout for me, not judged in terms of the best, but certainly the most frightening story of the four, is "The Ventriloquist Dummy" by Brazilian born Alberto Cavalcanti (he's simply billed as Cavalcanti), the only non-British director involved in DEAD OF NIGHT. Michael Redgrave plays a renowned ventriloquist who descends into an abyss of madness and murder, when his dummy takes on a life of his own. One of the most unsettling stories I've ever seen.

The somewhat less effective (if only slightly) mirror sequence by Robert Hamer shows something very scary can be achieved with very basic means. When Ralph Michael looks in the mirror, to his horror he keeps seeing the reflection of a dark Gothic room lit with candles, completely different from the room he's standing in and slowly, he begins to loose his mind. Ultimately, it is the extremely unsettling music score that makes it work. Basic but very effective.

As with most anthologies, it's difficult to keep track of the main interwoven storyline, because between the different stories we're told, your mind is still very much trying to grasp what you've just seen. This is probably why the genre became increasingly unpopular over the years. With the exception of "The Ventriloquist Dummy", don't expect anything particularly scary, but it did leave me quietly disturbed. The peerless British cast and the witty, slightly old-fashioned tongue-in-cheek dialog makes this very pleasant and appropriately unsettling viewing.

Camera Obscura --- 8/10 --- 10/10 for "The Ventriloquist Dummy"

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19 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
It's Deja Vu all over again, 18 September 2005

Author: theowinthrop from United States

This is one of those horror stories that just does not diminish over the years. An architect (Mervyn Johns, in his best dramatic role) is invited to the country home of a wealthy man (Roland Culver) and from the moment he drives up, he is aware that something familiar, and evil, is involved in this visit. Yet nothing bad is going on - it should be a routine visit. Still if it is a business visit, from the start it is not treated as a business visit. For one thing there is a set of guest at the home, including a psychiatrist (Frederick Valk), a young girl (Sally Ann Howe), a female family friend (Googie Withers), and a racing car driver (Anthony Baird). Johns acts nervously when he enters (he recognizes the interior of the house as well as it's outside surroundings), and he explains the situation to Culver and the others. They reassure him nothing is wrong, and proceed to give him a drink and discuss unexplained occult phenomenon they have all experienced (even the skeptical voice of reason Valk). It is these five experiences that take up the bulk of the film.

Although it is a well known horror movie, I will avoid explaining the moment of horror and how it expands, involving all the stories in a fierce conclusion. This is the best "Chinese Box" story that has ever been put on screen, in that everything does fall into place. The irony (for the viewer - and for Walter Craig, the nervous architect - is that we find at the end that the whole nightmare is about to begin all over again.

The best of the sequences (although a matter of taste) are the racing driver's, the female friend's, and the psychiatrist's. The driver, recovering from a crash in a hospital, keeps having a nightmare where he sees a hearse outside his window at a certain time, with a driver (Miles Malleson) who repeats, "Just room for one inside sir." This actually is a classic occult urban legend, as the face of the figure of doom reappears later at a key moment to scare the dream bearer into not proceeding with a normal act. The female friend's story is about how she and her husband barely manage to survive the acquiring of a Victorian mirror from an antiques dealer (Esme Percy). The mirror, it seems, has a life and evil spirit of it's own, and nearly makes history repeat itself.

The moment that raised this film to it's heights was the psychiatrist's tale. It deals with a ventriloquist (Michael Redgrave) who shoots a rival (Hartley Power) for trying to steal the affections of his dummy Hugo. Besides the obvious homosexual overtones of the story, the story has Redgrave's best film performance (unless one counts his Jack Worthing in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST or his Andrew Crocker-Harris in THE BROWNING VERSION) as the insane Maxwell Freer. It also has a chilling unexpected conclusion when Valk, trying to get to the heart of Redgrave's psychosis, unleashes a demon that nobody expected.

The other two stories are less frightening - one (Sally Howes' story about a personal ghost experience, probably when she was visiting the English town of Road) concerning an actual 1860 murder of a little boy, Francis Saville Kent. The murderer who was eventually punished (his sister Constance) survived a twenty year incarceration after her confession - and lived to be 101 in Australia. Nowadays, recent studies of that case suggest that Constance was not the killer - her father Samuel, or his mistress, the family nurse, may have killed Francis to keep him from talking to his mother about seeing a tryst. Constance loved her father, and may have taken the rap to protect him. However, Francis was her step-brother, not a full brother, and the originally investigation by the brilliant Scotland Yard Detective Jonathan Whicher in 1860 pointed to Constance as the killer.

The least of the stories (told by Culver) is based on an amusing golf - ghost tale by H.G. Wells. It is a pleasant diversion (it stars Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as rival golf players), and allows the segment with Redgrave greater effect by coming just before it.

The film has had effects ever since it came out. For instance, Danny Kaye (who slightly resembles Redgrave) played a ventriloquist with psychological problems (or an independent dummy) in KNOCK ON WOOD a few years later. A troublesome dummy named "Gabbo" (also a reference to Eric Von Stroheim's THE GREAT GABBO) briefly replaced "Crusty the Clown" in the rating of Springfield in THE SIMPSONS. But for the best effect it is Redgrave's moment of madness here, and the wonderful climax of this frightening movie. Are there better deja vu films? Just room for one sir!

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23 out of 29 people found the following comment useful :-
Scared me nearly to death as a kid., 12 March 2001

Author: cweed06 from New Jersey, USA

I saw Dead of Night when I was ten years old, and the horror stayed with me through most of my teen years. The mini-story about the antique mirror that showed the reflection of a totally different room than the one the man was in, made me afraid to be alone in a room with a mirror. Even to this day, as a grown man, I am a bit uncomfortable if I am alone at night in a room with a big, old mirror. Most of the mini-stories in this movie stayed with me for years, making me shudder whenever I would think about them. It is interesting, too, that the story of the ventriloquist's dummy that "comes to life," an oft-repeated theme in other movies and TV shows, originated with Dead of Night. I did not see the movie again until decades later. I was not as horrified, seeing it as an adult, but certain scenes still made me shudder. The main, underlying, weird idea of the movie, which becomes plain in the closing scene, leaves you with a spooky feeling and this thought: "could something like this be true of my life too?"

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16 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
"Christmas Party" Episode, 30 May 2005

Author: christinekay from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Many of the reviews I've read over the years of "Dead of Night" seem to sideline the "Christmas Party" episode as being less successful and effective than the other stories involved. At first, I tended to agree with them; however, after a while it dawned on me that there was something rather unusual about the sequence that I couldn't quite place my finger on. Normally, in a ghost story, any part of the story containing the appearance of the ghost looks rather unreal in comparison with the everyday part to underline the supernatural aspect of the spectre's apparition. However, in this particular story, it's the (real) children's party that looks unreal, and the (supernatural) ghost that looks real. The party shows a massive house, with a roaring log fire, loads of toys, food, etc, and the children enjoying themselves enormously, without any adults present. It has the look of a fantasy of the perfect party any child would want. However, the meeting with the young boy seems more rooted in reality, and this is the irony of the story - that Constance Kent, the sister he mentions, actually did exist and did admit to killing her younger brother. In real life, the boy was actually a baby when he was murdered, but his age has obviously been changed so that Sally could talk to him. This gives an extra poignancy to the story, in that he likes Sally and presumably would have wanted her for his real sister, but instead had Constance, who killed him - the worst crime she could have committed against a helpless child.

I think it would be wrong to overlook this sequence as unworthy of comment, and reassess its value in "Dead of Night". It may not be as frightening as the famed ventriloquist story, but it does carry an emotional power which is perhaps its strongest point.

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19 out of 25 people found the following comment useful :-
Grandfather of the multi-horror story film genre, 19 May 2002

Author: henrywooten from Washington DC

Dead of Night is one of those movies that actually started a genre. Tame to today's standards many of its short stories can be traced to horror plots today; most notably the ventriloquist dummy come to life (Michael Redgrave sequence). This movie takes horror where it should remain...the suspense film. We can see all the blood and gore today but why do films like The Six Sense (1999) or What Lies Beneath (2000) remain a success? Everyone has their own fears and thoughts of horror; and the thought of that fear and horror adds to the suspense film in all ways more thansay the breed of horror slasher films...probably best portrayed by Psycho, Halloween and the Scream Films. Dead of Night isn't a Hitchcock film but it uses the same actors of his England days and uses the same suspense techniques seen in his tv series. Check this film out and watch it from the perspective of the 1940s viewers eyes and see why it was popular. Also check out Cat People (1942)and M (1931)

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21 out of 30 people found the following comment useful :-
And I thought I might have dreamed up the whole thing!, 11 March 2004
Author: cleda from Pittsburgh

For years I've wondered if I really saw a movie that served as the source for innumerable childhood dreams and fears. I tried telling folks about seeing this British film on TV in the 1960s, but it was so jumbled in my memory that I really couldn't describe it properly. I knew it led to a lifelong dread of ventriloquist dummies, but I couldn't figure out how that tied to an architect at a country house party.

For no apparent reason today I put "ventriloquist movie" into yahoo and skimmed down to Dead of Night - British 1945. At long last I knew that I hadn't imagined the whole thing - and boy am I relieved! I'm also delighted to find that I've been "haunted" by a classic of the genre that has had a big impact on so many others.

I'm looking forward to ordering it and watching it again.

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12 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Masterpiece, 2 June 2005

Author: South62 (vperisic_ri@msn.com) from Croatia

I watched Dead of Night for the first and (unfortunately) for the last time on TV when I was 10 or 11 years old but I still remember it like one of most fearful experience of my life. Later, like a mature person I realized that my fear was nothing but the mirror image of geniality of this movie. The best horror ever made. Without effects, without computers, without trivial editing. Just with immense psychological sophistication. Something what good horror should always be: a kind of social and psychological criticism, story about dark side of our lives and souls. I just cannot find the words to express my respect to this monument. Dead of Night should never be forgotten. Never.

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