Cinematic Foreplay

I love the description of the time you have to wait before a director reveals the monster as "cinematic foreplay":

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/05/17/godzilla_2014_shows_the_monster_an_hour_in_does_it_work_the_data_on_how.html

Having recently watched Pacific Rim I agree with del Toro's comments about his film: it started with a climax and built up from there.

It's also good to see the mention of Night of the Demon. 

I'd read about this and had to hunt it down, but it was definitely worth the search.  I think it would have been far better if the monster had not appeared in the first scene: our imagination is always far more effective than anything a director can show - especially in a film that was made far before the pre-digital age.

The Woman in Black is another recent example where there is a significant delay before we see the monster/ghost - and the delay builds up the tension. 

It also occurred to me that the final sequence at the station might be a deliberate echo/tribute to Night of the Demon.

The Ten Best Horror Films

Here's another list from The Daily Telegraph to argue with:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/classic-movies/10001332/10-best-horror-films-chosen-by-Tim-Robey.html

I can accept most of the choices (especially Night of the Demon), and have seen eight of them, but where is the Bride of Frankenstein?

And, more recently, where is Let the Right One In (original version)?

 

Here's the trailer for Night of the Demon:

 

 



Night of the Demon

Once upon a time the BBC used to entertain us with classic ghost stories at Christmas; of these the best was Jonathan Miller's filmed version of Oh Whistle and I'll Come, based on the classic story by M R James.

As a result of this I read a brilliant selection of James's stories with an introduction by Nigel Kneale and have regularly re-read them - especially late at night during the winter.

Until recently I had not realised that Night of the Demon was based on The Casting of the Runes, and after reading a brilliant blogpost by Anne Billson on films that had scared her I managed to track down a copy on DVD.

Last week I watched it and it was superb: glorious black and white and filmed in the late 1950s, and with more suspense and sudden shocks than many current Hollywood films with budgets of an order of magnitude larger.

It also provided one of the samples for Kate Bush on her Hounds of Love Album, one of my all-time favourite recordings.

Here's a link to the US trailer where it was released as The Curse of the Demon: