Dead of Night (1945) watch online HD

Dead of Night is responsible for so many films made in the horror genre, because it was the first that took a huge gamble and pieced several unconnected stories together within a narrative that loosely keeps them together. Tales From The Crypt, Vault of Horror, Tales That Witness Madness, The House That Dripped Blood, Torture Garden, The Monster Club, Creepshow, Tales From the Darkside: the Movie are just a few of the films that owe part of their existence to this little British film. The frame story details how a man goes to the country for a weekend only to say he has been there before and met the people there before in his recurring dream. He is thrust into a discussion between those that believe in his dream and one lone doctor(psychiatrist) who seems able to explain all phenomena in a scientific way. Each of the guests then in turn tells a story about their brush with the supernatural. Most of the stories are very inventive(although by modern standards cliched as they have been copied many times)and entertaining. Two of the stories really stand-out. The first is about a mirror that shows you a different room as you look into it, and the other about a ventriloquist with a split personality. The other stories are good, and one is humorous(perhaps out of place but fun nonetheless). Acting is solid throughout with Mervyn Johns as the man subjected to the same dream over and over again. Richard Valk excels as the doctor, and Michael Redgrave is outstanding as the man able to give the gift of speech to a "dummy." Also of interest is the pairing of Basil Radford and Naughton Wayne form Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. They DO compliment each other so very nicely. A wonderful, eerie film.

Anthology n.: a collection of selected literary pieces or passages of works of art or music.

This classic horror-anthology from Britain's Ealing Studios is composed of four separate stories, composed around a group of strangers that is mysteriously gathered at a country estate where each reveals their chilling tale of the supernatural. But even after these frightening tales are told, does one final nightmare await them all?

The horror-anthology has proved a difficult sub-genre, usually made with only limited success, because it's notoriously difficult to get it right. If only one of the stories fails to deliver, the whole piece is dragged down. But this multi-part horror effort from Britain's Ealing Studios still proves to be very effective and justifiably still is one of the most revered and successful horror anthologies ever made. It features appearances by many of the best British actors of it's day, including Mervyn Johns, Ralph Michael, Basil Radford and Michael Redgrave. With four different directors at the helm, not all four segments are equally effective and are quite different in tone, but they are all good in their own right. The standout for me, not judged in terms of the best, but certainly the most frightening story of the four, is "The Ventriloquist Dummy" by Brazilian born Alberto Cavalcanti (he's simply billed as Cavalcanti), the only non-British director involved in DEAD OF NIGHT. Michael Redgrave plays a renowned ventriloquist who descends into an abyss of madness and murder, when his dummy takes on a life of his own. One of the most unsettling stories I've ever seen.

The somewhat less effective (if only slightly) mirror sequence by Robert Hamer shows something very scary can be achieved with very basic means. When Ralph Michael looks in the mirror, to his horror he keeps seeing the reflection of a dark Gothic room lit with candles, completely different from the room he's standing in and slowly, he begins to loose his mind. Ultimately, it is the extremely unsettling music score that makes it work. Basic but very effective.

As with most anthologies, it's difficult to keep track of the main interwoven storyline, because between the different stories we're told, your mind is still very much trying to grasp what you've just seen. This is probably why the genre became increasingly unpopular over the years. With the exception of "The Ventriloquist Dummy", don't expect anything particularly scary, but it did leave me quietly disturbed. The peerless British cast and the witty, slightly old-fashioned tongue-in-cheek dialog makes this very pleasant and appropriately unsettling viewing.

Camera Obscura --- 8/10 --- 10/10 for "The Ventriloquist Dummy"

This is one of those horror stories that just does not diminish over the years. An architect (Mervyn Johns, in his best dramatic role) is invited to the country home of a wealthy man (Roland Culver) and from the moment he drives up, he is aware that something familiar, and evil, is involved in this visit. Yet nothing bad is going on - it should be a routine visit. Still if it is a business visit, from the start it is not treated as a business visit. For one thing there is a set of guest at the home, including a psychiatrist (Frederick Valk), a young girl (Sally Ann Howe), a female family friend (Googie Withers), and a racing car driver (Anthony Baird). Johns acts nervously when he enters (he recognizes the interior of the house as well as it's outside surroundings), and he explains the situation to Culver and the others. They reassure him nothing is wrong, and proceed to give him a drink and discuss unexplained occult phenomenon they have all experienced (even the skeptical voice of reason Valk). It is these five experiences that take up the bulk of the film.

Although it is a well known horror movie, I will avoid explaining the moment of horror and how it expands, involving all the stories in a fierce conclusion. This is the best "Chinese Box" story that has ever been put on screen, in that everything does fall into place. The irony (for the viewer - and for Walter Craig, the nervous architect - is that we find at the end that the whole nightmare is about to begin all over again.

The best of the sequences (although a matter of taste) are the racing driver's, the female friend's, and the psychiatrist's. The driver, recovering from a crash in a hospital, keeps having a nightmare where he sees a hearse outside his window at a certain time, with a driver (Miles Malleson) who repeats, "Just room for one inside sir." This actually is a classic occult urban legend, as the face of the figure of doom reappears later at a key moment to scare the dream bearer into not proceeding with a normal act. The female friend's story is about how she and her husband barely manage to survive the acquiring of a Victorian mirror from an antiques dealer (Esme Percy). The mirror, it seems, has a life and evil spirit of it's own, and nearly makes history repeat itself.

The moment that raised this film to it's heights was the psychiatrist's tale. It deals with a ventriloquist (Michael Redgrave) who shoots a rival (Hartley Power) for trying to steal the affections of his dummy Hugo. Besides the obvious homosexual overtones of the story, the story has Redgrave's best film performance (unless one counts his Jack Worthing in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST or his Andrew Crocker-Harris in THE BROWNING VERSION) as the insane Maxwell Freer. It also has a chilling unexpected conclusion when Valk, trying to get to the heart of Redgrave's psychosis, unleashes a demon that nobody expected.

The other two stories are less frightening - one (Sally Howes' story about a personal ghost experience, probably when she was visiting the English town of Road) concerning an actual 1860 murder of a little boy, Francis Saville Kent. The murderer who was eventually punished (his sister Constance) survived a twenty year incarceration after her confession - and lived to be 101 in Australia. Nowadays, recent studies of that case suggest that Constance was not the killer - her father Samuel, or his mistress, the family nurse, may have killed Francis to keep him from talking to his mother about seeing a tryst. Constance loved her father, and may have taken the rap to protect him. However, Francis was her step-brother, not a full brother, and the originally investigation by the brilliant Scotland Yard Detective Jonathan Whicher in 1860 pointed to Constance as the killer.

The least of the stories (told by Culver) is based on an amusing golf - ghost tale by H.G. Wells. It is a pleasant diversion (it stars Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as rival golf players), and allows the segment with Redgrave greater effect by coming just before it.

The film has had effects ever since it came out. For instance, Danny Kaye (who slightly resembles Redgrave) played a ventriloquist with psychological problems (or an independent dummy) in KNOCK ON WOOD a few years later. A troublesome dummy named "Gabbo" (also a reference to Eric Von Stroheim's THE GREAT GABBO) briefly replaced "Crusty the Clown" in the rating of Springfield in THE SIMPSONS. But for the best effect it is Redgrave's moment of madness here, and the wonderful climax of this frightening movie. Are there better deja vu films? Just room for one sir!

Many of the reviews I've read over the years of "Dead of Night" seem to sideline the "Christmas Party" episode as being less successful and effective than the other stories involved. At first, I tended to agree with them; however, after a while it dawned on me that there was something rather unusual about the sequence that I couldn't quite place my finger on. Normally, in a ghost story, any part of the story containing the appearance of the ghost looks rather unreal in comparison with the everyday part to underline the supernatural aspect of the spectre's apparition. However, in this particular story, it's the (real) children's party that looks unreal, and the (supernatural) ghost that looks real. The party shows a massive house, with a roaring log fire, loads of toys, food, etc, and the children enjoying themselves enormously, without any adults present. It has the look of a fantasy of the perfect party any child would want. However, the meeting with the young boy seems more rooted in reality, and this is the irony of the story - that Constance Kent, the sister he mentions, actually did exist and did admit to killing her younger brother. In real life, the boy was actually a baby when he was murdered, but his age has obviously been changed so that Sally could talk to him. This gives an extra poignancy to the story, in that he likes Sally and presumably would have wanted her for his real sister, but instead had Constance, who killed him - the worst crime she could have committed against a helpless child.

I think it would be wrong to overlook this sequence as unworthy of comment, and reassess its value in "Dead of Night". It may not be as frightening as the famed ventriloquist story, but it does carry an emotional power which is perhaps its strongest point.

I saw Dead of Night when I was ten years old, and the horror stayed with me through most of my teen years. The mini-story about the antique mirror that showed the reflection of a totally different room than the one the man was in, made me afraid to be alone in a room with a mirror. Even to this day, as a grown man, I am a bit uncomfortable if I am alone at night in a room with a big, old mirror. Most of the mini-stories in this movie stayed with me for years, making me shudder whenever I would think about them. It is interesting, too, that the story of the ventriloquist's dummy that "comes to life," an oft-repeated theme in other movies and TV shows, originated with Dead of Night. I did not see the movie again until decades later. I was not as horrified, seeing it as an adult, but certain scenes still made me shudder. The main, underlying, weird idea of the movie, which becomes plain in the closing scene, leaves you with a spooky feeling and this thought: "could something like this be true of my life too?"

The architect Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) drives to a farmhouse in the countryside of London and he is welcomed by the owner, Eliot Foley (Roland Culver), who introduces him the psychiatrist Dr. Van Straaten (Frederick Valk), his friend Joan Cortland (Googie Withers), his young neighbor Sally O'Hara (Sally Ann Howes) and the race car driver Hugh Grainger (Antony Baird). Craig tells that he has the sensation of Déjà vu since he had had a nightmare with them in that house but one lady is missing. However Mrs. Foley (Mary Merrall) arrives completing the characters of his dream.

The skeptical Dr. Van Straaten does not believe in supernatural but the guests tell supernatural events that they have lived. Grainger had a car accident and then a premonition that saved his life; Sally had met a ghost during the Christmas; Eliot and his wife had lived an evil experience with a haunted mirror; two golfers that loved the same woman and decide to dispute her in a game, but one of them dies and haunt the other; and Dr. Van Straaten tells the story of a ventriloquist with double personality that is dominated by his dummy. But when Dr. Van Straaten accidentally breaks his classes and the power goes out, the nightmare begins.

"Dead of Night" is an original horror tale that is certainly the source of inspiration to "The Twilight Zone", "Tales From The Crypt", "Vault of Horror", "Creepshow", "Tales From the Darkside: the Movie" where the screenplay discloses a main story and many segments. The final twist is totally unexpected and a plus in this little great movie. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Na Solidão da Noite" ("In the Solitude of the Night")

Dead of Night remains, sixty years after it was made at Ealing Studios, one of the creepiest and most intelligent of supernatural films. No, it doesn't have creaking coffins, or pale hands edging through a doorway, or Ruritanian vampires. It has a country home set in the warm Kentish countryside, civilized house guests with excellent manners, five stories of unhinged supernatural happenings, and one guest who suffers from nightmares. This is an anthology film, with the stories ranging from ghosts to premonitions to savage possession. They are told by the people who experienced them, and they are all wrapped around by the one guest who knows the house, knows the host and knows the other guests even though he has never seen any of them before. He knows them in his nightmare, a nightmare he has had over and over. "It always starts exactly the same as when I arrived, just now," architect Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) says. "I turn off the main road into the lane. At the bend in the lane, the house comes into view, and I stop as I recognize it. Then I drive on again. And Foley meets me at the front door. I recognize him, too. And then, while I'm taking off my coat, I have the most extraordinary feeling. I nearly turn and run for it, because I know I'm going to come face-to- face with the other six." Four of the guests and the host, we learn, have stories of their own.

There's the race car driver's story, directed by Basil Dearden. Hugh Grainger (Anthony Baird) survives a crash but sees from his hospital window a horse-drawn hearse. The driver looks up at him. "Just room for one more, sir," he says with a smile. That's just the beginning.

There's the schoolgirl's story, directed by Alberto Calvalcanti. Sally O'Hara (Sally Ann Howes) plays hide-and-seek at a party and discovers a hidden room, a small boy crying...and an older sister.

There's the wife's story, directed by Robert Hamer. Joan Cortland (Googie Withers) buys an antique mirror for her fiancée. It's not long before he sees in the mirror another room from another age, and we learn of a crippled, jealous husband and a strangled wife.

For a chance to exhale and smile, there's the story of two golf fanatics, directed by Charles Crichton, who decide how to have the woman they both love. Elliot Foley (Roland Culver), our host, tells us this story.

And there is undoubtedly one of the most unnerving of horror tales, the story of ventriloquist Maxwell Frere (Michael Redgrave) and his dummy, Hugo, directed by Calvalcanti. Redgrave gives a tour de force performance as the dominated ventriloquist...but is he dominated by Hugo or by a separate personality. All we know for sure is that Hugo bites.

Weaving through these stories is the dread of Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns), who insists he has met the other guests. He knows that he will slap one, that another will break his glasses, that a sixth guest will soon appear. He knows he will do something terrible to someone who has never harmed him. One of the guests, Dr. van Straaten (Frederick Valk), is a psychoanalyst who has a reasonable explanation for all the stories. As the stories are told and as Craig's forecasts happen, van Straaten's rationales become shakier. This connecting story, directed by Dearden, reaches a climax in a psychedelic nightmare of leering faces emerging from the stories, of madly off-balance staircases and dark windows...and of a terrified Walter Craig.

And then a telephone rings. It's morning and we're in Walter Craig's bedroom. He wakes, realizes this was another nightmare and takes the phone. He's invited to spend the weekend looking over a house that needs an addition built. His wife asks who was calling. "Eliot Foley, Pilgrim's Farm...I wonder why that sounds so familiar," he says. "A weekend in the country? I should go." she says. Craig takes a coin and says, "I'll toss for it. Heads I go, tails I don't." Mrs. Craig looks at the coin. "Heads." He smiles and says, "I go." She gives him a hug. "That's just what you need, darling. It'll help you get rid of those horrible nightmares." But was it a nightmare? Or is it still?

Despite there being five tales, the linking narrative and four directors, Dead of Night works as one unified story. Everything fits seamlessly. Even after all these years the stories hold up, particularly those of Frere and Craig. Coming in a respectable second, for me, are the stories of the race driver and the wife. But even the weakest, the schoolgirl's story, is well done. The golfer's story is there to provide some eased tension and it serves it's purpose. The acting is all of a high order, with Michael Redgrave just about extraordinary. I've always been fond of Roland Culver's brisk competence. He's very good as the host. If you watch this movie, bear in mind that up until Dead of Night, ventriloquists' dummies in the movies had always been seen as charming, funny and harmless. Hugo's DNA changed all that forever.

Scary British horror film with a bunch of people in a beautiful British country house sitting around and telling horror stories.

A man in a hospital has a horrific vision that later saves him; a young girl has a ghostly experience at a Christmas party; there's a haunted mirror sequence; a purportedly humorous ghost story involving two golfers and a downright terrifying sequence. This has Michael Redgrave playing a ventriloquist whose dummy seems to have a life of its own. The dummy is terrifying and Redgrave is superb--he actually became a ventriloquist for the role! It all has a framing story which ends with a somewhat predictable ending. However, back in 1945, this ending was probably brand new and must have jolted audiences.

I caught this on TV back in the 1970s. It was on LATE at night (about 1 am) and I was only 13 but I stayed up to watch it. I was fine with it until the Redgrave sequence and the one following it--those two scared me silly and I couldn't get to sleep--Hugo's face kept appearing in front of me! Seeing it now, all these years later, it STILL works on me. The stories have all been redone as episodes of "Twilight Zone" or "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"...but none have matched this movie. It's well-acted and has multiple directors doing separate sequences. There's next to no violence and no sudden shocks--it scares you but it sort of creeps up on you. A perfect example of subtle horror. The only misstep this makes is the stupid golfer story--it's not funny and pretty dumb--but this is a small complaint. A true horror classic.

The DVD print is in pretty poor condition. The picture is clear but somewhat faded and the audio drops in and out (music especially). Still it is watchable and that's what counts. A 10 all the way.

"They just don't make them like they used to", is one of those clichéd sayings spouted by older folk and ignorantly dismissed by the young. However, "Dead of Night" is a shining example of where these words may be applied without fear of being misplaced.

From my youth, I remember several episodic horror films, made up from short stories and cleverly linked together but this was by far the best. Although I can't remember the age at which I first saw it I can definitely remember being really quite terrified at times. There's no grotesque blood spilling, or horrific undead monsters, CGI special effects or anything that todays horror filmmakers seem to have on their "must include" list. In fact, it's the charm of the film that gives the horror aspect such a contrast to work against.

Think of it as the spookiest episodes of The Twilight Zone merged into one terrific movie and you won't be far off.

I watched Dead of Night for the first and (unfortunately) for the last time on TV when I was 10 or 11 years old but I still remember it like one of most fearful experience of my life. Later, like a mature person I realized that my fear was nothing but the mirror image of geniality of this movie. The best horror ever made. Without effects, without computers, without trivial editing. Just with immense psychological sophistication. Something what good horror should always be: a kind of social and psychological criticism, story about dark side of our lives and souls. I just cannot find the words to express my respect to this monument. Dead of Night should never be forgotten. Never.

I was fortunate enough to see this movie the way it was meant to

be seen: I was about 13 and my brother was 11. We were

supposed to go to bed, but we snuck and watched this movie. We

were also fortunate enough to see it on PBS (of all places!) uncut,

without commercial interruption. Perhaps, the fear of being caught

by our parents added to the experience. We sat by the flickering

light of the TV set (on low volume) in the dark. Needless to say, by

the end of the movie we thought our heads would explode with

fear. I thought my eyes would bulge out of my sockets. It was a

definitive bonding experience for me and my brother. Strange that

fear should be so relished! Up to this day, when posed with the

question, "You wouldn't do that?" Our response is in that devilish

high-pitched voice, "Wouldn't I? WOULDN'T I??" Thanks to Anchor

Bay putting out the dvd double feature of Dead of Night with Queen

of Spades (also excellent!), I have just watched it again and that

old friend fear comes right back. Hugo Fitch lives on!

Dead of Night is one of those movies that actually started a genre. Tame to today's standards many of its short stories can be traced to horror plots today; most notably the ventriloquist dummy come to life (Michael Redgrave sequence). This movie takes horror where it should remain...the suspense film. We can see all the blood and gore today but why do films like The Six Sense (1999) or What Lies Beneath (2000) remain a success? Everyone has their own fears and thoughts of horror; and the thought of that fear and horror adds to the suspense film in all ways more thansay the breed of horror slasher films...probably best portrayed by Psycho, Halloween and the Scream Films. Dead of Night isn't a Hitchcock film but it uses the same actors of his England days and uses the same suspense techniques seen in his tv series. Check this film out and watch it from the perspective of the 1940s viewers eyes and see why it was popular. Also check out Cat People (1942)and M (1931)

Dead Of Night was made in 1945, but it is still creepy today. It tells the story of Walter Craig who is invited to stay at a farmhouse in the countryside for a weekend. When he arrives he meets a group of people who appear in his reoccuring nightmare. When he informs them of this they each tell him of their ghostly experiences. A racing car driver is given a warning of death, a young girl meets a boy who was murdered 100 years ago, a woman's husband is possessed by an evil mirror, a man's friend is haunted by the spirit of his golfing buddy and a psychologist encounters a ventriloquist who's dummy has a mind of it's own. Craig goes mad and strangles the psychologist and proceeds to run through the places where the group's stories took place. Eventually, he wakes up and realises that it was just a nightmare, but he is then invited to the farmhouse in real life, and the final shot is of him going inside to the horror that awaits him. People may say that this brilliant film isn't scary, but if you watch it at 1 in the morning with all the lights out a chill is guaranteed to run up your spine! The "Haunted Mirror" and "Ventriloquist's Dummy" stories are by far the best, but I also like the "Hearse Driver" part. In conclusion, a chilling film that is a prime example of how ghost stories should be told. 10 out of 10!

For years I've wondered if I really saw a movie that served as the source for innumerable childhood dreams and fears. I tried telling folks about seeing this British film on TV in the 1960s, but it was so jumbled in my memory that I really couldn't describe it properly. I knew it led to a lifelong dread of ventriloquist dummies, but I couldn't figure out how that tied to an architect at a country house party.

For no apparent reason today I put "ventriloquist movie" into yahoo and skimmed down to Dead of Night - British 1945. At long last I knew that I hadn't imagined the whole thing - and boy am I relieved! I'm also delighted to find that I've been "haunted" by a classic of the genre that has had a big impact on so many others.

I'm looking forward to ordering it and watching it again.

Walter Craig goes away for the weekend to relax to a place suggested by a friend. When he arrives he finds that he's has been to this place before, but in his dreams, and the host, his mother, and the 5 other guests he has also encountered in his dreams (though never in person), but as Craig later puts it, they should be called nightmares. One of the guests, Psychologist Dr. Van Straaten, believes there is a logical explanation for Craig knowing the house and of the guests, but the remaining guests debunk Van Straaten's theory but telling of their supernatural encounters, but Craig later believes the longer he stays at the manor, the greater chance, tragedy will occur. This is the movie that Tales of the Crypt could not ever hope to become. The film starts off slowly (its lone drawback), but as the film progresses, it become more mysterious and eerie. The Hearse Driver segment is wooden, the Christmas party is the weakest, the Haunted Mirror is a great spook tale, and the Golfing Story is a nice humorous change of pace, however the Ventriloquist's Dummy segment, the one the film is known for, is clearly the best of the lot, with Michael Redgrave giving the performance of his life as Frere. Mervyn Johns is very good as the tormented Craig, and the linking narratives are add its own spookiness as well. Great ending. Rating, 10.

As many viewers have commented, Dead of Night unfortunately can seem over familiar and rather tame by today's standards. This is due to the fact that it was truly the first of its kind, long before scary anthology films had become a staple of Sixties movies, and fourteen years before Serling's Twilight Zone.

Keeping this in mind, the film stands the test of time pretty well. For me, the most interesting parts of the film have to do with the framing narrative, in which architect Craig arrives at Foley's country house, and feels he has met all the other guests before.This low key beginning is delightfully English in its well mannered conversation and utter normality. Mervyn Johns is particularly effective as the frightened Craig, convinced that something terrible is going to happen before long, and meeting with sympathetic but not totally helpful responses from the other guests; all of whom relate an unexplained event they were involved in.

The acting is good throughout and the atmosphere quietly absorbing, as the house is gradually darkened by the approach of night, and the failure of the electricity. The mood darkens correspondingly, with Craig more fearful and anxious to leave before catastrophe strikes.It is at this point that the psychiatrist Dr. Van Straaten tells his own strange tale, of a ventriloquist's bizarre relationship with his dummy, and the film reaches its high point.

Michael Redgrave is totally convincing as the unhinged ventriloquist, and the story is presented ambiguously enough that one can choose to believe either way that the dummy is in fact alive, or the performer was simply insane. However one chooses to view it, this story is one of the most memorable and unnerving ever to be put on film, and clearly served as a template for many other evil dummy stories that followed.

The startling events that follow the conclusion of the psychiatrist's story remain compelling and eerie today. Time may have dulled the impact a little, but it still retains a realistic feeling of nightmare.

Mention must be made of the fine performances of Googie Withers and Ralph Michael as the couple who own the haunted mirror, and the totally sweet and charming Sally Ann Howes as the teenage girl who comforts a sad little boy, who is not what he appears to be.

This is a great horror classic.I think what makes it so great is it contains something that we can all relate to. Many horror films are so far fetched, that we can't imagine anything like that happening to us. Today's horror pictures equate fear with blood, gore and shock value. But I think the things that scare us the most are the things that are subtle, which makes it more believable.

We've all had feelings of deja vu at some point - or had recurring dreams or similar experiences. This movie takes very ordinary objects we all have in our homes, like a mirror, and makes us think twice about them. And what child hasn't played hide and seek and worried that they might not get found by the others. But in this case, the girl gets lost in a secret area of a home only to discover something ghastly.

There is an expected lighthearted touch in the middle with the golfing story. I found the part where the ghost couldn't remember the hand-signal sequence to "disappear" to be absolutely hilarious. Some have commented they felt it was out of place. But I think the comedy relaxes you enough so that when the next scary sequence begins, it really comes as a shock.

I found shadings of Hitchcock, The Twilight Zone, and even Shyamalan ( the circular nature and premonition of SIGNS). I loved the circular nature in this tale especially. I found the cinematography to be intriguing, especially some of the close-ups. I think the "Christmas Party" sequence was especially beautifully filmed. And the creepy music score throughout does quite a good job of adding to and creating tension.

Any fan of classic Horror will love this little gem. This is one that will stick with you for some time (and make you double-check your mirrors). And remember...all it takes is a weekend in the country to cure those recurring nightmares!! HAPPY DREAMS!

I remember seeing this as a child (on TV I add and NOT the original release!) and it made a lasting impression on me. I rented this to see if it my recollection of the film matched the reality. So did it? Well yes and no. This anthology, which is the forerunner of all those Technicolor Amicus productions in the 70's like Asylum and Tales from the Crypt, has its moments of creepiness and some moments of cringing 1940's acting. It's a UK PG rating which means you are not going to get blood soaked visceral scenes of dismemberment (indeed what 1940's film would?) and as I said before you will get received pronunciation with characters in the scenes. However that means that the film has to rely on the writing and the set up of the scenes themselves to install the creepiness I mentioned before – creepiness but not terror!

There may be spoilers from now on as I talk about the stories themselves so beware!

The stories are all linked to the central character (Walter Craig played by Mervyn Johns) who turns up at a cottage in the country where he has been asked to come by a friend. Walter enters the house and has snatches of Déjà Vu and then starts to predict what happens before things do. He then starts to recall a nightmare he has where all the people in the room appear just as they are now. However it's a nightmare that doesn't stay with him once he is awake. This then gives the opportunity for the all the other characters who have been invited there to relate stories of strange things that have happened to them.

We have the first two stories given in quick succession with no real depth to them – a Man who predicts an accident and a girl who meets the ghost of a child. Then we have the weakest story in the anthology – the comic one – written by H.G. Wells no less, about two love lorn golfers.

Then we get to the last two stories which are the best and it's always good to save the best till last. We have one story of a mirror that seems to possess a murderous influence over the person who looks in it. The mirror is brought for a man (Peter Cortland played by Ralph Michael) by his wife (Joan Cortland played by Googie Withers) who is the one relating the story. He then starts to briefly glimpse images in the mirror of another room, fleetingly at first but more permanent later on. This starts to drive Peter mad and so Joan goes to find out the history of the mirror – a history that seems to be repeating itself.... All these stories are all explained away by another guest at the 'party' - a doctor (Dr. Van Straaten played by Frederick Valk). He then gives an account of a case he was involved in one, he said, almost changed his mind about the supernatural.

This story is the most famous and the one everyone recalls who has seen the film –the segment about a man who believes his Ventriloquist's Dummy is actually alive! This segment is indeed the best and has Sir Michael Redgrave in the lead and so gives the whole performance some credibility. The creepiness of a Ventriloquist's Dummy is bad enough but when we see the dummy appear to speak with no one else in the room... well that is creepy. Yet we do not see the dummy move on its own and we only hear the dummy talk unless the Ventriloquist is with it where we see the lips move. So indeed is the dummy alive or is the Ventriloquist mad? The doctor leaves the story open.

Then comes the twist in the whole tale – Walter Craig predicts that something evil will happen when the Doctor breaks his glasses. Everything gone before can be explained away as coincidence and mass hysteria or madness but rooted in reality. The Doctor then beaks his glasses and the whole thing turn surreal. Walter Craig murders the doctor and then starts to appear in all the stories gone before always being chased and hunted by the characters and being murdered in all. Then in the last flashback we see Walter Craig in a prison cell trapped with the Ventriloquist's Dummy with all the other characters peering through the bars at unnatural angles. The Dummy then slowly turns its head and under its own influence starts to walk towards him and grasps its hands around his neck and.......Walter Craig wakes up in bed. It's all been a dream!

Getting dressed he takes a phone call from his friend. He wants him to come down to his country cottage for the weekend.........

The last 15 minutes of the film will stay with you – if not because you were terrified by it because the story was told so well and the surreal feeling coupled with the black and white photography will get into your mind!

I've enjoyed chilling films for many years, now, with 'Halloween', the original 'Salem's Lot' and 'The Shining' among my first-ever encounters with the visually macabre.

Since those early days, however, few examples of the genre have managed to pull off what the truly phenomenal film I have literally just finished watching has managed: to make my skin crawl with absolute terror.

What makes it all the more remarkable is that the B&W film in question - 'Dead of Night' - dates from 1945, and represents Ealing Studios' one and only foray into the realm of the 'scary movie'. One can only wonder what astonishing creations they might have come up with had they continued down this particular road. And yet, I'm glad they didn't - to have made any attempt at topping this remarkable film would have been an exercise in futility.

Having never heard of this film prior to a chance encounter with it on the IMDb, I came to it with an open mind, and yet as I began to watch it, I began to recall certain story lines from those compendiums of short stories for boys that were so popular - certainly in the UK, at any rate - during the 1970s and 1980s. The driver of the hearse, for one, with his eerie invitation 'Just room for one inside, sir!', and of course, the story of the increasingly insane ventriloquist convinced that his dummy has taken on a sinister life of its own.

I remember reading the original short story that inspired this latter scene in particular and finding an illustration in the middle in which the ventriloquist was depicted climbing a spiral flight of stairs with the dummy held before him in one hand. The accompanying quote read something like: 'In the half light, it appeared that the dummy was leading the man!'. That illustration, coupled with that simple quote, lost me several nights' sleep.

And now here it is, brought to life on the small screen. The dummy is just as hideous as I recall it, and Michael Redgrave's remarkable performance must surely have inspired Anthony Perkins prior to his role in the original 'Psycho'. In fact, I detected several Hitchcockian trademarks in parts of the film, including the full-frame images of the dummy and the grotesquely distorted camera angles at the end.

Anyone who watches the final nightmare sequence and doesn't experience rampant goose-bumps and/or make a bid for the back of the sofa really needs to check for a pulse!

The dummy sequence is not the only highlight of this film, however. Speaking personally, I felt the golf sequence was inappropriate and out of place - more 'Carry On' than anything else - but the others were superbly wrought, the black and white film, crackly and sometimes wonky music and typical Ealing Studios 'Grayson and Cholmondley-Warner' English plumminess combining to create a film with every bit as much spooky atmosphere as enjoyed by the ongoing productions of Agatha Christie's 'The Mouse Trap' in London's west-end.

Anyone even remotely contemplating the making of a scary film here and now in 2006 needs to study this film avidly - it's a master-class in how it should be done, and makes some other supposedly 'classic' horror films I've watched recently ('Last House On The Left' and 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' in particular spring to mind) look positively amateurish and laughable by comparison.

I just hope and pray that no-one in Hollywood stumbles across this film and tries to re-create it, as others before them have tried with the likes of 'Psycho' (average), Cape Fear (very average) and 'Ringu' (admittedly better than most).

And finally, for what it's worth, 'Dead of Night' goes straight into my personal top five best horror films of all time, alongside 'Jacob's Ladder', 'The Shining', 'Halloween' and 'Ju-On: The Grudge', all of which demonstrate perfectly that you don't need state of the art CGI and special effects and/or the wanton blood-letting of air-headed teenagers to scare the living hell out of your audiences.

It's an absolute classic.

Ealing studios' only foray into the horror genre resulted in a fine film indeed. Ealing studios are, of course, best known for their eloquent and inventive comedy, of which I am a big fan, but this effort certainly proves them worthy of creating hits in other genres, and it's a shame that they didn't make more horror. Dead of Night is often cited as being the first 'omnibus' style horror film (a style that would later be rekindled in the 60's by Mario Bava's "Black Sabbath"), and that is another thing that this film will be fondly remembered for, aside from it being a damn fine movie.

Like many later omnibus style horror movies, the tales in this one aren't all as great as each other - but unlike many, it doesn't feature any weak links either. The first two tales are simple, yet effective ghost stories that tell stories that would later go on to influence entire movies in an efficient manner. I'm not a big fan of ghost stories as they tend to drag out something that could easily be told in half the time; but here that isn't a problem as the tales are short and therefore the film doesn't have to clog up it's running time with lots and lots of dreary back-building to try and make the stories work. Our scene opens with an architect, called Walter Craig, arriving at a house where he has a promise of some work; only to find that the situation he finds himself in resembles that of a recurring nightmare he's been suffering with. We later discover that he's been the victim of some ghostly goings on, and he tells us this through his story of a hearse driver that has warned him of his death. The first tale isn't all that impressive, but it prepares the audience for a quadruple helping of lovely little ghost stories nicely.

As mentioned, the second tale isn't all that impressive either, but it's still rather decent and a damn sight more chilling than the likes of 'The Sixth Sense'. It's after the first two stories that the film really picks up, and the third tale is an absolute delight. It tells the story of a woman that buys a mirror as a present for her fiancé, only to find that the mirror once belonged to a lord that slowly a drove himself insane; a fate that promises to befall her fiancé also. This tale works thanks to simplicity and constant intrigue. Nothing is over the top about it, and we're fed information very much on a 'need to know' basis; and because the tale is so intriguing, we very much want to know. The film then takes a turn more towards what Ealing would become famous for with the golfing tale. This one is a departure from the others are there's much more comedy involved, and it doesn't concentrate on scaring the audience at all. It's then that we're catapulted into the movie's showpiece tale; the absolutely magnificent 'The Ventriloquist's Dummy'. This tale is nothing short of perfect and features of the most frightening, yet underused articles of horror imagery in history - of course I mean the dummy itself. This tale actually manages to be quite frightening through it's use of atmosphere and the way that the dummy is used. It works on both a straight horror and a psychological level.

Dead of Night breathes that familiar Ealing style, as words such as 'besmirch' and 'crackers' are used often and it's all very British. This film represents how jaded modern audiences have become with it's tales that work due to simplicity rather than over the top scares or special effects. The style of the movie is a delight to view, and despite being a horror movie; the eloquent edge blends well with it. Dead of Night is often cited as one of the films that helped to create what would become the modern horror movie, and that alone is reason enough to see it. When you consider that the film is also a damn fine horror in itself, you've got a must see.

DEAD OF NIGHT is the first horror anthology film and a well-remembered classic courtesy of Ealing Studios. The first story is a short but sweet tale of precognition and a spooky omen. Although it's a simply-told story, the presence of the ever-cheerful Miles Malleson as the chirpy hearse driver certainly enlivens the segment a lot, while the haunted performance from narrator Antony Baird also keeps things interesting. The best thing about this tale, though, is the subtle chill that ensues after Baird realises that the bus is on its way to doom and backs away; both he and the viewer stare on in horror at the inevitable, a climax which isn't ruined by some rather unconvincing model work.

The second story is largely disappointing, and any chills are dissipated by the overacting of the youthful cast. The story is of a Christmas party at an old mansion. While playing hide-and-seek, a girl finds herself in a remote attic bedroom where she befriends a frightened young boy. Later on that evening, she discovers that the boy was murdered by his sister decades ago. The figure she was with turns out to be a ghost. Sadly, the female lead in this story is terrible with her clumsy over-emphasising which makes her performance an embarrassing one. The old-fashioned dialogue and plot points also make this one less than inspiring.

Thankfully, the third story returns some credibility to the film, with an interesting tale telling of a man haunted by a possessed mirror which witnessed murder and suicide decades before. The man finds himself becoming possessed by the spirit of the murderer and attempts to kill his wife. This is a clever and disturbing tale, with some good, understated acting from the male lead and an imaginative plot. It was reworked in 1973's FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE with David Warner in a more gruesome fashion.

The fourth is an incongruous comedy which is at odds with the rest of the subtlety-filled chills and hauntings. It concerns two rival golfing companions who both fall for the same girl. To decide who gets her, the pair embark on a tournament together, with one of the men winning through cheating. His rival promptly walks into a lake and drowns himself, but the winner finds himself haunted by his companion. Although this episode is mildly amusing, the comedy aspects have dated in the worst way and the whole story is treated as one big 'joke'. See AN American WEREWOLF IN London for a better film about a man being haunted by his dead friend.

The fifth and final story is a case of saving the best till last. This classic and well-remembered yarn concerns a ventriloquist who becomes possessed by his own dummy. It turns out that he is actually a schizophrenic who personifies his dummy, Hugo, as an evil, living being and who eventually causes him to attempt murder. Thanks to some fantastic acting from a twitchy Michael Redgrave (plus the narrator, a disbelieving doctor) and a really spooky story, this is classic stuff and inspired at least two full-length movies, DEVIL DOLL and MAGIC. There's just something inherently sinister about a wooden dummy's grinning and this intelligent story exploits that to the full.

Subtle and spooky, Dead of Night is an effectively chilling ghost film and a minor classic of the genre. While not explicitly frightening today, most of the episodes still pack a punch and the film is well worth watching for the story lines, the performers, and the circular ending.

An architect (Mervyn Johns) senses impending doom as his half-remembered recurring dream turns into reality. The guests at the country house encourage him to stay as they take turns telling supernatural tales.

British anthologies really took off in the 1970s with my favorite studio, Amicus. But here we have Ealing, not known for their horror films, making an anthology in the 1940s. That is way ahead of the pack (excluding earlier German films like "Waxworks" and "Eerie Tales").

For the most part, this is a really good one. It runs a bit long, and perhaps one of the weaker segments could have been cut. But some of the scenes (such as the haunted mirror) are really good and can almost stand on their own. And then when we get the big reveal, it is terrifying, both for us and our protagonist.

While I still prefer the Cushing-Lee anthologies of the 70s, this is well worth checking out for those who are not familiar.

First time I saw it was in the middle of a long Ealing season on UK BBC2 in 1977, needless to relate the overall quality of all of the films shown were mind-boggling but for me Dead of Night stood out. I've always considered DON to be their best effort, and also still the spookiest film ever made by anyone anywhere. And really, it'll never be surpassed because horror films have generally moved on into the land of shock and gore and jettisoned atmosphere and story.

The biggest problem has been since highly combustible nitrate film went out of favour around 1950 the use of the soulless safety film stock, now gradually being succeeded in its turn by equally soulless digital no-film-at-all. Film-makers have had to work harder to achieve any kind of atmosphere at all whereas with use of nitrate stock even b films effortlessly displayed one. Compare Cat People to Creature from the Black Lagoon. Class A Dead of Night reeks of spookiness, of "horror to come", and this is even with the clipped BBC British accents of the main characters that could be and probably is derided nowadays. Even American Hartley Power spoke posher than usual. Auric's growly lumpy orchestral music helps of course and along with a poor quality soundtrack generates even more menace - even when Mervyn Johns has his (unintentional) slow-motion cigarette at the "end" and you know what's happening. However I presume the censor couldn't work it out as a ghastly motiveless murder is committed and goes unpunished!

Maybe not the best film ever made overall, certainly the best compendium film ever made, one that you can watch every few years and still wallow in with the same frisson as the first time.

I watched this again after a too-long gap of about six years. Were there many anthology films made during this time? "Flesh and Fantasy" (1943) comes to mind but "Dead of Night" is superior. The plot involves an architect who arrives at a country house for work, in a recurring nightmare, and he's terrified because he knows how this nightmare is going to end... At the house there are a number of guests and they soon fall into talking about their own horrifying supernatural tales. The stories of each of the guests range from semi-comical (the "golfing" episode was my least favorite, although there was one chilling moment even in that one) to the terrifying (the best of the lot, imho, is the 'ventriloquist' episode). Some have speculated that Rod Serling probably drew heavily on "Dead of Night" when writing a number of scripts for "The Twilight Zone" (as just one example, the scene where the dummy bites the hand of the ventriloquist is copied almost exactly in the TZ ep "The Dummy"). I'm not sure if this movie was a blockbuster at the time, but I think it was ahead of its time in terms of depth of concepts, in that there is more than meets the eye.