A scientist's reason battles superstition, his life as fragile as
parchment, his rock solid skepticism soon broken like the jagged teeth of
Stonehenge. Jacques Tourneur deftly directs this demonic dramaturgy where the
supernatural coincides with the Thomas Theorem.
In the thrilling prologue, a nervous professor is apologetic to an
austere Dr. Karswell, promising to end an investigation because the professor
now believes in the mysterious Power. But it’s too late for the good professor
as his fate lurches from the bubbling mist in the form of a fiery Balrog
descending from the trees, his former obloquy now a formal obituary. Enter: an
American scientist Dr. John Holden as he falls in love with the victim’s niece
Joanna Harrington, and together they must race against devilish time to
investigate her uncle’s violent death while attempting to decipher an ancient
tome of forbidden and forgotten knowledge.
Tourneur utilizes shadows and tense pacing as the film races towards it
finale, their fate laid down like train tracks in the cold hard earth, as
unchanging and hardened as steel, as tasteless as fear. Karswell is presented
as a reasonable fellow and not some satanic nut, lending an unsettling
credibility to the story. Each coincidence can be explained psychologically, as
Holden rationalizes, or considered preternaturally, as the film supposes.
Though the winged demon is revealed in the first act and it can be argued
that fear of the unknown is the greater fear, there is an anxious shadowy
satisfaction to awaiting the creature’s return...and guessing who it shall
feast upon. The denouement is a rush of clacking wheels on steel tracks, where
modernity meets druidic orthodoxy.
Final Cut: (B+)
