Yet another horror film beginning with 'Night of...' (Night Of The Eagle (DVD))

Name: hogsflesh

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Product:	Night Of The Eagle (DVD)
Date:	21/01/08 (98 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well acted and quite scary at times

Disadvantages: A little slow and perhaps too old fashioned

A review of just the film. The DVD can be had from amazon for about £7.

This is a spooky British horror film from 1962. It's more in the subtle tradition of films like Night of the Demon than Hammer's garish gothics. It's in black and white and takes its time getting to the point, which may put a lot of people off, but on the whole I was kept entertained for its 80-odd minutes.

Norman Taylor, a young lecturer, is rapidly advancing in his career. Unfortunately the wives of some of his colleagues resent both his success and his pretty American wife, Tansy. Although Norman is a thoroughgoing rationalist, his wife believes strongly in witchcraft. When he forces her to throw away all her protective charms, bad things start to happen. Could the faculty wives be trying to destroy him through magic? Or is it just a mixture of coincidence and wifely neurosis?

It's obviously not a good idea to be an uber-rationalist in a horror film. When we see Norman lecturing a class on the non-existence of magic at the start of the film, we can be fairly sure he'll have eaten his words by the end of it. He's a curiously charmless lecturer (but then such people tend to be), but although he's a bit smug you don't actually want to see any serious harm befall him. He's played by Peter Wyngarde, some years before Jason King. It's odd seeing Wyngarde doing straight acting, and he's pretty good. He looks a little like Robert Powell with a better nose. His finest achievements remain Flash Gordon and his bizarro concept album, but it's nice to know he had the odd serious role in him. (He's also prone to showing off his surprisingly buff torso, and wears some unbelievably high-waisted trousers.)

The rest of the cast are unfamiliar, but very good. Janet Blair as Tansy gets the balance between hysteria and mysterious about right. (Although the Taylors' relationship isn't quite believable - he continually pours scorn on her deeply held beliefs, but she persists in loving him so much she's willing to risk her life for him.) Margaret Johnson is great as the snide chief tormentor/possible witch and Judith Stott is good as the student whose wild accusations start Norman's spell of bad luck.

There are a couple of good scary bits (good enough to make me jump, anyway) and it's not predictable in the way that some films are - you feel the characters are in real danger and that something is genuinely at stake. It's a while before we find out whether there's anything actually supernatural going on, or whether it's all in the head of a superstitious woman driven mad by her Dawkins of a husband. This ambiguity is well played, and the film manages to be creepy long before any of the real shock moments arrive. The director, Sidney Hayers, later went on to work on most of the corniest American action TV shows that I loved as a kid - good for him!

The incidental music is decent, not unlike Hammer's style, with lots of overwrought orchestrals. There are some nice spooky noises that are reminiscent of the kind of thing the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop would start creating for Dr Who a year later. Because of its age there's no nudity, and little real violence. It could perhaps be scarier at certain key moments; the end, although satisfying, is a little abrupt; and the main showcase effects sequence is let down by a very visible string (you'll know what I mean if you see it). Oh, and the title isn't great - the book the film was based on is called Conjure Wife, a much more appropriate name.

Night of the Eagle's not quite up to the standard of other scary British movies like The Innocents or The Haunting - it doesn't have the same level of dread they generate. But it's worth a look if it turns up anywhere near you anytime soon. Basically, it's not as good as Night of the Demon or Night of the Living Dead, but better than, say, Night of the Seagulls or Night of the Lepus.

Summary: A classy old British horror movie