Dead of Night (1945)

This is a great old school anthology with 5 individual stories of the supernatural that are tied together with a neat wrap around story involving an architect and his recurring nightmares.  The movie opens with the architect arriving at a country estate to do some work for the owner.  When he arrives he acts rather strangely towards the guests in the house.  He eventually lets slip that he has dreamed about all of them.  Not only that but something really terrible happens.  This prompts the other guests to relate their own strange occurrences.  One of the guests, a racecar driver, tells the story of a prophetic dream that saved his life.  Another, a young woman tells about the ghost she spent some time with.  There is also a creepy story with a haunted mirror that drives people to kill.  Things are lightened up with the story of a ghost that haunts the man who cheated him at golf.  Finally the last story is that of a ventriloquist dummy that tortures it’s partner until he is insane!  The movie then returns to the architect and finishes up with a satisfying and vague ending.

This is an awesome old movie that delivers some real chills and in the ghostly golfing story a few laughs.  There isn’t a single weak story in the bunch here; with each pulling it’s own weight.  I do like how each of the stories has it’s own atmosphere and vibe to it, which might come from the fact that 4 different directors worked on the movie, each bringing his own style and vision to it.  My favorite of the bunch has to be the story of the haunted golfer.  The dialogue is very clever and funny.  Even better yet are the performances of the actors, who really have great timing with each other.  But again each of the stories are cool and worth checking out.

I don’t want to sound like an old man here, but they really don’t make them like this anymore.  The movie looks amazing and boasts some great camera work, lighting, and especially in the case of the young woman’s ghost story wonderful sets.  In spite of the dramatically different tones that many of the stories have they are all shot in a way that supports the story’s atmosphere.  The woman’s ghost story has a lot of shadows and a really creepy vibe to it.  The golfer’s story is far lighter and is filled with a lot of exteriors that lighten the mood.  Pay attention to the final segment with the dummy and see how the lighting is done to cast long shadows over the features of the dummy to make it look creepy.  Little touches like this are lost on most newer horror films that just want to shake the camera and assault your ears with loud music and sound effects (there I go again!). 

I know many fans won’t watch anything much older than Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, which is a real damn shame.  I know that a lot of the older movies are sort of cheesy (which is why I love them!) but there are some that will still grab a hold of an audience and keep their attention.  This is one of them.  Do give it a chance.  I highly recommend Dead of Night.

3 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2010 John Shatzer