The film Dead Of Night is a unique British film upon release in 1945. Unique in that it was produced by Ealing Studios, more famous for their comedy output but Dead Of Night is more of a supernatural horror film.
Unique in being a portmanteau type of film, an anthology of several stories weaved into a central arc, a household gathering and the structure being used many times again particularly in British cinema.
Here we are told the recurring dreams of an architect who recognises the assembled people at a country house he has been invited to do some initial work at altering.
The guests are assembled like a game of Cleudo and have several supernatural stories that are made into short films. Some of the stories are pretty mundane in my opinion yet some are quite interesting. Good, I'm thinking a ventriloquist and his mental state before murder and a lady who purchases a grand looking mirror from an antiques store before it causes some repercussions in her marital household.
A third segment concentrates on a racing driver who crashes and sees an undertaker saying 'room for one more' in his hearse before said driver later has a premonition about the driver as a bus ticket conductor shortly before the double decker bus crashes off the road and plummets down an embankment.
The fourth I have little recollection it is so uninteresting!
Interesting structure for a film, that yes you more than likely you have come across but this is an early example. Also a very early British entry into the 'horror' genre although it is tame compared to what I consider a horror.
Unique in being a portmanteau type of film, an anthology of several stories weaved into a central arc, a household gathering and the structure being used many times again particularly in British cinema.
Here we are told the recurring dreams of an architect who recognises the assembled people at a country house he has been invited to do some initial work at altering.
The guests are assembled like a game of Cleudo and have several supernatural stories that are made into short films. Some of the stories are pretty mundane in my opinion yet some are quite interesting. Good, I'm thinking a ventriloquist and his mental state before murder and a lady who purchases a grand looking mirror from an antiques store before it causes some repercussions in her marital household.
A third segment concentrates on a racing driver who crashes and sees an undertaker saying 'room for one more' in his hearse before said driver later has a premonition about the driver as a bus ticket conductor shortly before the double decker bus crashes off the road and plummets down an embankment.
The fourth I have little recollection it is so uninteresting!
Interesting structure for a film, that yes you more than likely you have come across but this is an early example. Also a very early British entry into the 'horror' genre although it is tame compared to what I consider a horror.