Night of the Demon!

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It's coming!

It's in the trees!

I think you know what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the never-to-be-forgotten chiller It's Coming and It's in the Trees!

Fortunately, it had another, even more magnificent, title than that.

And that title was Night of the Demon.

In fact, it had two other titles than that. For, it was known in the United States as Curse of the Demon. Presumably, for the benefit of those who might not be able to guess that a film called Night of the Demon is a horror movie.

But is it a horror movie? 

I'll come to that later.

1957's Night of the Demon is, of course, an adaptation of the M. R. James yarn Casting the Runes and involves sinister cult leader Julian Karswell. A man who's in the habit of bumping off his foes by secretly handing them a runic parchment that will lure a homicidal demon to them.

Unfortunately for Karswell, Dr John Holden, a big-shot American psychologist, is in town, determined to debunk him.

And he has the assistance of the niece of one of Karswell's victims!

And that can only mean one thing.

It's demoning time!

The protagonists are played by Dana Andrews and Peggy Cummins. One of them a brick wall  of determined scepticism. The other, all too convinced that dark forces have been unleashed upon the world.

Dana Andrews was that thing which seemed compulsory in British horror films of that era, an American guest boozer struggling to find good work in his home country. And Cummins was the star of Gun Crazy. Somehow, such is the nature of the film that Cummins' instinctive believer comes across as more rational than ultra-rationalist Andrews. Just as Mulder always seemed more in touch with reality than Scully ever did.

But the true star of the film is Niall MacGinnis as Karswell. An opponent willing to do whatever it takes to maintain his sway over his followers. But one who's never too busy to throw parties for the entertainment of local children.

And there's the genius of his characterisation. A masterful portrait in the use of bonhomie to disguise malicious intent. A man who'll welcome you into his home, with an air of relaxed generosity but who'll have you leaving that selfsame home in fear for your life.

As for whether it's a horror story, it seems director Jacques Tourneur wasn't so convinced, as he didn't want the titular demon to appear on screen, preferring a more ambiguous approach that would have left the audience unsure whether any actual supernatural events had truly occurred or whether such activities were all in the minds of the characters.

However, all was not harmonious. Co-producer Hal E Chester insisted that audiences would want to see an actual demon in a film whose title promised them one and, to his director's disgust, inserted one at key points in the film.

While I'm all in favour of ambiguity - my favourite horror film being The Innocents - I can't help feeling the oft-reviled Chester made the correct decision. Leaving aside that the demon has become an icon, appearing on record sleeves, book covers, posters and gifs, Tourneur - the man who directed The Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie and The Leopard Man - had already made several films that refused to commit themselves about the existence of the supernatural, and I can't help feeling there's a limit to how many times you can perform that trick before it becomes annoying affectation.

But what of the film itself?

It is, of course, a classic, vaguely overlooked at the time of its release but garnering critical appreciation, as the years have passed. A beautifully shot thing, making use of lighting, camera angles and sound to unfurl a truth that our world is only one brooding night away from the barrier between it and a whole other, malevolent, reality breaking down to reveal that what's really out there in the dark is what our childhood selves always feared was really out there in the dark.

And, when it comes to the cast, we should also acknowledge the presence of Brian Wilde - later to find comedy immortality as Foggy Dewhurst in Last of the Summer Wine and as Mr Barrowclough in Porridge - in his role of the doomed Rand Hobart, a man so traumatised by his dealings with Karswell that he's been left in a catatonic state that can only be escaped by hypnosis.

And we shouldn't forget Kate Bush who used an audio clip from the film at the start of her 1986 single Hounds of Love.

And we shouldn't forget me. After all, I'm the one talking about this film, and that must make me the most important one of them all.

Amazingly, from what I can determine, it seems I only first encountered it in 1980, which, for a venerable thriller, is remarkably late in my development. Surely, BBC Two must have shown it in the mid-1970s, during its famous Saturday night spooky double-bills. But, it seems it didn't.

But, however late in the day it first entered my life, it can never truly leave it, being easily one of my favourite three or four horror films of all time and one I must always watch whenever it turns up on TV.

Which it does a lot.

Almost as though it's as inescapable as its titular star himself.