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Dead of Night

UK 1945
produced by
Michael Balcon for Ealing
directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer
starring Mervyn Johns, Roland Culver, Mary Merrall, Googie Withers, Frederick Valk, Anthony Baird, Sally Ann Howes, Michael Redgrave, Hartley Power, Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne, Ralph Michael, Robert Wyndham, Judy Kelly, Miles Malleson, Michael Allan, Barbara Leake, Esme Percy, Peggy Bryan, Allan Jeayes, Elisabeth Welch, Magda Kun, Garry Marsh, Renee Gadd
screenplay by John Baines, Angus MacPhail, based on stories by H.G. Wells, E.F. Benson, John Baines, Angus MacPhail, music by Georges Auric, special effects by Lionel Banes, Cliff Richardson

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Architect Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) takes a job to renovate a mansion in the country, a place he has never been before, but when he pays the place a visit, he realizes the whole house, and those in it, are part of his recurring nightmare. He relates this to the present crowd, and immediately a psychiatrist tries do find a rational explanation for the whole situation. The other house guests though are more sympathetic to his claims, and they tell him some supernatural stories of their own:

  • The Hearse Driver (based on a story by E.F.Benson and directed by Basil Dearden, both of them also responsible for the linking narrative): After a crash, racedriver Grainger (Anthony Baird) spends quite some time in hospital. One day, when he looks out of the window, he sees an old fashioned hearse, with the driver (Miles Malleson) asking him to jump aboard, as there's only room for one more. Disturbed by this vision at first, Grainger soon forgets all about it - until he wants to hop on a bus, but recognizes the bus conductor, who tells him there's still room for one more, to be the hearse driver. Startled, Grainger lets the bus go without him, and only a few hundred feet later the bus has a horrible crash ...
  • The Christmas Party (based on a story by Angus MacPhail, directed by Alberto Cavalcanti): Young Sally (Sally Ann Howes) plays hide and seek with some other kids at a Christmas party in a large mansion, when she finds a hidden stairway leading to a room in which she finds a little boy who claims to live here - much to the surprise of Sally, but she tugs him in anyhow when he asks her to. Only later does Sally learn that the boy was actually murdered in the very same house almost 100 years ago.
  • Haunted Mirror (based on a story by John Baines, directed by Robert Hamer): Peter's (Ralph Michael) wife-to-be Joan (Googie Withers) has given him a mirror as a present - but unfortunately the mirror is haunted since someone murdered his wife in front of it all those years ago, and now, Peter sees himself in the room the murder was committed every time he looks into the mirror - which would be troubling enough, but soon enough he is more and more taken over by the persona of the murderer until he tries to kill Joan in front of the mirror as well, but immediately ceases to do so once she smashes the mirror.
  • Golfing Story (based on a story by H.G.Wells, directed by Charles Crichton): This one is rather comical in tone, golfers Parratt (Basil Radford) and Potter (Naunton Wayne) fall in love with the same woman, Mary (Peggy Bryan), and since they are otherwise the best of friends, they decide to play a game of golf over who is to marry her (who loves them both equally). Potter loses, and immediately commits suicide, but when he learns in the beyond that Parratt has cheated him, he comes back to haunt him - but somehow Parratt persuades him to go back to the beyond again, only Potter has now forgotten how, and in the finale, taking place during Parratt's and Mary's wedding night, it's Parratt who accidently makes himself disappear, leaving Mary to Potter after all ...
  • Ventriloquist's Dummy (based on a story by John Baines, directed by Alberto Cavalcanti): Ventriloquist Frere (Michael Redgrave) has identified with his dummy to such an extent that he thinks it's a seperate person - and thinks that fellow ventriloquist Kee (Hartley Power) wants to steal teh dummy from him, which makes him go totally bonkers ...

After Walter has heard all of these stories, his nightmare really begins, when he seems to be dragged into all of the stories himself and ... awakes screaming.

Everything's back to normal again at breakfast, after which he drives to the country, to a mansion where he's never been, to renovate it - the exact place of his nightmare ...

 

Quite possibly, Dead of Night is one of the best horror anthologies, maybe even horror films ever, a film that is amazingly coherent considering it's based on the stories of four different writers and was directed by four different men, and it doesn't even stay true to one direction - while one story is a harmless ghost story, one a supernatural comedy, one essentially a psycho-thriller, only two are all-out horror stories. Still all of these stories are intelligently scripted, stylishly directed and based on understatement rather than all-out effects (apart from the grand finale), and in all the film has passed the test of time remarkably well, seemking fresh enough even today.

Recommended.

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

Amazon

Amazon UK

Vimeo

 

 

 

Robots and rats,
demons and potholes,
cuddly toys and
shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

is all of that.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to
-
a collection of short stories and mini-plays
ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic
to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle, all thought up by
the twisted mind of
screenwriter and film reviewer
Michael Haberfelner.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

the new anthology by
Michael Haberfelner

 

Out now from
Amazon!!!