Demons of the Mind

In the 19th Century, a depraved Baron Zorn keeps his two adult children locked up and drugged in his castle, as he fears that they have inherited the curse of his wife's unstable mental illness. His daughter Elizabeth manages to escape, and encounters a young man Carl and spends a short time before she's recaptured. Heading to the castle is doctor Falkenberg to hopefully cure the kids, but Carl who tags along wants to free Elizabeth. Meanwhile hysteria is slowly building in the local village, as there's a sexual predator killing their young woman. They think its demons, but a drifter Priest sees it as his job to rid the area of evil and he points them to Zorn.

Eccentrically ham-fisted and downbeat, but lush looking and skilfully illustrated Hammer Gothic horror period piece that might not have the class of some other Hammer entries, but it sure was entertaining. The negative press might have its reasons, but I didn't find it a complete waste. The psychological story is absurd, glassy and lurid in every aspect, with gratuitous blood letting and excessively pointless nudity equalling extreme blood-lust. However a solid, well-serving cast (featuring Patrick Magee, Paul Jones, Yvonne Mitchell, Gillian Hills and a perfectly impulsive Robert Hardy) and Peter Sykes' pastel, well-etched direction (with inspired strokes and suspenseful fits) counter-pouches its weak, plodding and downright exploitative script of stock arrangement. Striking a big tick to their names were Harry Robinson's sweeping music score of harrowing scope, and Arthur Grant's fluid cinematography of scenic panache. On paper this one got better treatment, than what it really deserved. Fun and trashy Hammer mayhem.

Hammer films had by 1972 clearly some problems coming up with new and fresh ideas. Their old style monster movies were beginning to show their age and the formula had been remade too many times (ie. Dracula AD 1972). So some experiments were made. "Captain Kronos" is one and this one another. The story moves very slowly in the beginning and what is happening is never really quite clear. The story about one family's inherited madness is intriguing but never fully developed. And those expecting some gory horror movie will be very disappointed, because for the most part, this is a rather slowmoving psychological study with added chilling elements. The biggest drawback here is the pace, which is non-existent for three-thirds of the movie. The final twenty minutes or so are more satisfying in that sense. Robert Hardy is also not a bonus, overacting like mad. But there are compensations. Other performances are very good, like Patrick Magee as the mock-psychiastrist and Gillian Hills as the young and maybe mad daughter of the family. And the basic plot IS interesting! A remake with a revision of the script might do wonders. Arthur Grant behind the camera does a great job too, contributing his usual skill and thereby making everything look more expensive than it really is. The art-director knows what he is doing too and the score by Harry Robinson is excellent (he really was an underrated filmcomposer).

Well I went into this with high expectations, but unfortunately Demons of the Mind failed to deliver. I'm a big fan of Hammer Horror, and since I've seen most of the big ones; this one has been at the top of my 'must see' for quite some time. It has to be said that Demons of the Mind represents one of Hammer's most ambitious projects, but that can't be seen as a compliment to the film as it just doesn't work. Demons of the mind does benefit from some good production values, and actually reminded me a lot of Ken Russell's The Devil's because of the way that it fuses good acting and cinematography with a purely B-movie plot. The plot is overly complicated, and focuses on a pair of children who are kept locked up by their father, a man who fears that the children may have been 'infected' by their insane mother. The boy keeps escaping, and coincidentally a lot of dead girls are turning up in the woods. The father keeps them separate as the boy is attracted to the girl, and the plot thickens when a doctor who stands to make a fortune if he can 'cure' the children turns up...

Demons of the Mind was directed by Peter Sykes, who also directed one of the studio's worst efforts in the form of To the Devil a Daughter two years later. Clearly, he is not Hammer's most adept director. The film features a handful of British horror stars - most notably Patrick Magee and Shane Briant, both for different reasons. Magee is one of the most underrated and unique British horror actors, and he always manages to increase the credibility of anything he stars in - even if it is something like this. Briant, on the other hand, starred in a handful of Hammer Horror flicks during the early seventies and failed to make much of an impression after the first one. Briant was noticeable in Straight on till Morning for his ridiculous haircut, but since then failed to make an impression. The film really lacks what Hammer's big guns bring to the table - Cushing and Lee are sorely missed. The plot mumbles along for most of the duration, and by the end I wasn't too bothered what happened. I can give this film plaudits for the production values and for some notable sequences - but overall, Demons of the Mind isn't one of Hammer's finest hours.

Whenever Hammer offered 'different' - 'Never Take Sweets From A Stranger', 'These Are The Damned', this one . . the response was mostly muted. 'Stay in your lane!' cried critics and public. 'Stay in your foggy Edwardian cemeteries, your dank asylums, your Home Counties-locked pirate ships . .'

'Demons . .' fits this line. Category is: 'slightly arty psychological melodrama' with all-in scene-chewing and shouting.

It is the morbid tale of . . Oh, whatever. It'd take all morning . .

Let's review the cast instead. The weird, bemused cast: My old mate, Michael Hordern, is most fun. A mad clergyman wandering the woods rambling and tut-tutting to himself as he goes.

Robert Hardy, overboard - to say the least - is in the lead as batty and torn Baron Zorn.

Yvonne Mitchell - a fine, unnerving actress; the relentless 'Yield To The Night' etc - is 'Aunt Hilda'(!), a kind of psycho-nanny to Zorn's insane/possessed/neither children.

Patrick Magee, a discredited quack, brought in to . . well . . make everything worse !

Paul Jones - yes, him - a Lennonesque hero who hasn't a scooby what the lines he's delivering mean or where he is.

Kenneth J Warren, a skinhead Aussie with a glut of ranting loon roles behind him, is almost subdued amongst this lot as the brutal butler. Almost . .

This hardcore ensemble is chiefly why 'Demons..' doesn't get a kicking. Add realistic gore; typically fine Harry Robinson music; the great Arthur Grant's last Hammer camerawork . . you've a sympathetic pot.

Despite it's pretensions, don't expect to take anything from - or make anything of - it, either. It's entirely designed to be senses-bustingly fevered. I accuse the miasmic coiling of the previous years' 'The Devils' as guilty - but then, blame 'The Devils' for everything from 'Flavia The Heretic' to 'Caligula'.

I watched "Demons of the Mind" after not having seen it since it originally appeared. My memory of the film was very positive, and there are some interesting ideas in the script. However, there are an overabundance of plot elements that are presented in a haphazard and overly hysterical form by director Peter Sykes. One other reviewer here calls this a free-form narrative, but for me it was a confused jumble.

Robert Hardy plays (or overplays, as others here have noted) Count Zorn who is convinced that there is madness and other evil in his family's bloodline.

His wife had committed suicide, so he decided that he needed to lock up his children in case they started manifesting any insanity. Years later he has a controversial doctor (played by Patrick Magee in his usual mannered way) treating both grown kids (Shane Briant, Gillian Hills).

At the same time there are young women being brutally murdered in the woods and local superstitions are being whipped up, while a wandering evangelical (Michael Hordern) mutters religious dogma and joins with the locals.

A good director could have woven all these piece together nicely and provided a solid, disturbing thriller. But Sykes is more interested in whipping up a lot of intensity in each scene, which is why there's more overacting than needed and why the film winds up becoming exhausting to watch after a while. Too bad. It had the makings of a fine film. Perhaps the usual rushed schedule that Hammer Films had didn't allow for sufficient care, though screenwriter Christopher Wicking had history of penning horror films that were more interesting in concept than in execution.