A shorter review of this movie appears in my "10 Best Horror Movie" entries.

A masterpiece of subtle terror marred only by bad judgement by studio heads, directed by craftsman Jacques Tourneur and blessed by a solid cast and crew. This is the movie you should show film students on how to make horror movies on a small budget.

The movie opens with a Professor Harrington paying a visit to one Julian Karsewell (Niall MacGinnis), the head of a Devil Cult in rural England. Harrington begs Karsewell to lift the curse he has placed on Harrington's head. Karsewell agrees, but one gets the impression he really isn't ("some things are more easily started than stopped"). Relieved, Harrington leaves Karsewell's palatial estate, but a strange mist causes him to crash his car, and...

Meanwhile, on a Transatlantic Plane. Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews) is trying to sleep, only the activities of the lovely Brit (Peggy Cummings) behind him keep intefering. This does little to sweeten Dr. Holden's mood upon landing when he's confronted by hectoring reporters. It appears that Dr. Holden is attending a big Parapsychology conference in London, and he is a rather famous debunker of paranormal activity, and intolerant of any who disagree with his hard line materialist viewpoint. Meanwhile, Joanna our enchanting English beauty discovers that her uncle...Professor Harrington...is dead. Conviently for the plot, Harrington was also working with Holden on exposing the "fraud" behind Karsewell's cult.

At his hotel, Holden discovers (to his shock), that some of his colleagues don't share his contempt for the supernatural. Irish Psychologist Mark O'Brian has been working with a member of Karsewell's cult, one accused of murder, and has disocovered that the cultist insists that a demon did it, a demon who looks an awful lot like one postulated by every civilization from Sumer on up. Blithely ignoring the question of how an uneducated farmer knows about Sumerian fire demons, and a warning call from Karsewell himself, Holden goes off to the reading room of the British Museum to do some research. There he discovers that a certain volume "The True Discoverie Of Witches" is missing. Karsewell suddenly appears, and tells Holden that he has a copy (and the only known copy is missing from the B.M. hmmm...I wonder if there's a connection?), and would Holden like to come to his home and see it? Holden agrees, and Karswell hands him a card, a card with disappearing writing on it...and how did Karsewell walk in and out of the reading room without being noticed be anyone else...and why is Holden seeing everything in wavy lines...and what is that odd whistling?

Holden soon meets Joanna at her Uncle's funeral. She warns Holden to give up his investigation. Holden invites her to come with him to Karsewell's. They find Karsewell giving a Halloween party for the local kids (He used to be a professional clown and magician, that should convince anyone he's evil if nothing else). Holden smiles a smug little smile, and thinks he has seen the truth of Karewell's powers. Ignoring Karsewell's calling up of a windstorm, and Karsewell's telling him he's been cursed to die in three days, Holden persists in treating Karsewell as nothing but a common con man.

Little by by little, Holden's faith in the material is whittled away as more and more he's confronted with little coincidences that can't be explained, away, like pages of his day planner disappearing, and the discovery of a lively little slip of paper with mystical runic symbols written on it in his coat pocket. Oh, he stubbornly maintains his disbelief in words, but increasingly he must face a terrible truth...he is doomed to die unless he can give the slip of paper back to the man who give it to him!

An intelligently written script, and tension building direction, make for a quietly effective tale of terror. Some modern day movie fans may find it a bit slow moving, but this was before "The Matrix," when filmakers had to learn how to build suspense, not rely on the SPFX to do it for them. And director Tourneur knows how to build suspense right. Without an obvious monster for most of the picture (except for some scenes added on by Columbia studio execs) Tourneur relys on the situation, and the emotions of his actors to build a scary mis-en-scene. And he has a nice collection of hardworking Brit actors to do it with, with Dana Andrews the only Yank in the bunch, and he's a hardworking pro too (no pretty boys need apply). Andrews and the always marvelous MacGinnis have a powerful chemistry as the opponents in a tense mental chess game. MacGinnis, maintaining a well-mannered, friendly, even gentle, facade that masks a deadly, fiendish, intellect. He's all sweet reason, and civilized humor on the surface, but beneath lurks a man who can and will do what it takes to destroy his enemies. He is well matched in Dana Andrews' as the snide materialist Holden, a man with no patience for anything that can't be proved under a microscope. Yet even as he is forced to reevaluate his skeptical philosophy, he never breaks down, or gives in to the raw animal panic that's rising inside him. Peggy Cummings does a good job as the heroine, her Joanna isn't whiney or given to the screaming faints at critical moments, like so many horror heroines. Instead we are treated to a intelligent, couragous, young woman who stands by her fella, even when she thinks he's wrong. And she's easy on the eyes too...sigh...

The only downer in the entire movie are those scenes added by the Columbia execs. Just your Standard Guy In A Bad Costume. I mean really, what were they thinking? Still it only appears a couple of times, and doesn't even come close to ruining the picture. Tourneur was just too good for even that to spoil his work.
If you're looking for a real scare this Halloween. Get this movie, and turn your lights off. I guarentee that you won't regret it.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12