Dead of Night (1945)
When: Thursday, July 27th | 21:30
Where: Dionysiou Areopagitou Pedestrian Precinct (opposite the Acropolis Museum) | Free entrance
Tribute «British Gothic»
Director: Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer
Starring: Mervyn Johns, Roland Culver, Mary Merrall, Googie Withers
Duration: 82'
Seven people are gathered in an idyllic cabin and tell eerie personal stories, where the supernatural violently bursts causing unexpected consequences in their mundane everyday life: a haunted mirror, an erotic rivalry that crosses the line, a life-saving intervention from the beyond, the encounter of a girl with a ghost, a ventriloquist who is driven to madness by his own doll and an ominous dream that comes true…
The best anthology horror film ever made that seems even more impressing considering that it was created in the legendary studio of Ealing, a company responsible mostly for some of the best British comedies of all times, and more so under the directing orders of four different filmmakers.
However, this morbid maypole constitutes a model of script cut-back, styling consistency and narrative coherence by masterfully fusing the different stories into a blend of gothic horror, popularized psychoanalysis, dreamlike ambiance and British phlegm that gradually climates only to result in an inescapable nightmare.
Thanasis Patsavos
