NIGHT OF THE DEMON

GB
1957
1hr 35mins
Dir: Jacques Tourneur
Starring: Niall MacGinnis and Peggy Cummins

A reporter finds himself cursed by an occultist with the ability to summon a demon

This classic early horror is much respected today amongst followers of the genre and it has a memorable final sequence in which the occultist, played by Niall MacGinnis, has his curse thrown back at him. He leaps from a train and then gets run down by another as the demon bears down on him. These scenes were filmed at Bricket Wood station on the Watford Junction-St Albans Abbey branch and a couple of ex-LMS Class 5MT ‘Black Five’ 4-6-0s were used for these scenes, one of which is No.45324. There are some very good shots of these in the film’s final moments, although a model was clearly used for one distant shot. Prior to this conclusion there are shots of Watford Junction station, which masqueraded as ‘Clayham Junction’, whilst the station signage at Bricket Wood was amended to read ‘Leton Wood’. The film was an adaptation of the 1911 M. R. James story Casting the Runes and to accelerate the pace, the film was trimmed down to 83 minutes and retitled Curse of the Demon in the US. Thanks to Reelstreets for the screen shots.

Clayham Junction. No. This is Watford Junction before its brutalist modernisation make-over made this scene unrecognisable.
The professor (Niall MacGinnis) leaves the train at Leton Wood, which is in reality Bricket Wood
Fearing for his life the professor is almost rundown by this approaching train being hauled by a ‘Black Five’
The demonic presence in the background is what he is really scared of but it is in fact another train which this time runs him down
Dana Andrews and Peggy Cummins on the platform at Bricket Wood which was in itself a film star, having appeared in no less than eleven feature films in the twenty eight year period 1939-1967