Monday, October 6, 2025

2025 Horror Watch - Day 6 - Dead of Night (1945)

  Okay, I cheated a little bit to break that weird streak.  This one is from my TBW queue.  Content warning:  ventriloquist dummy, suicide

Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) keeps having a recurring nightmare about meeting six people at a country house and having something horrible happen.  He tries to convince them that his dreams are real, but Dr. Van Straaten (Frederick Valk), a psychiatrist, disbelieves.  So several of the guests take turns recounting their own brushes with the supernatural.  

This movie is great.  The framing device is a little weak but the cast is phenomenal.  Each story feels fully fleshed out, like its own full episode, but doesn't drag the movie down.  Now, not every story is a winner.  The golf one irritated the shit out of me, personally.  But I can recognize that it was meant to be a mood lightener.  Obviously, the final one is the standout with an incredible performance by Michael Redgrave.  And Hugo, of course.  People talk about "dream logic" in films, which never lands for me, but the nightmare sequence here is actually quite jarring.  There are some great makeup effects in the crowd scenes.  

It's streaming for free on Kanopy, if you have a library card and it's definitely worth checking out if you like your horror more atmospheric and British.

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