Dead of Night

Very nicely tied together portmanteau horror from the 40s (thanks Felix)

The stiff upper acting is a little off putting but once you get past that it's easy to be intrigued by this film.

A  man  travels to a country cottage where he recognises the guests from his dreams and has premonitions that something terrible is going to happen. In between informing a young guest he will be slapping her sometime in the future and an exuberant amount of chain smoking, 4 spooky tales are told.

The excellent room in the mirror story is stand out for me but I'm sure for most it's the power tripping ventriloquist one, also very good. The 3 other tales are disappointing however, including one based on a HG Wells story (!?) about two golf loving friends that seems to be thrown in for comic relief.


NO - I want to say yes but two words Golf Ghost

Devil Doll

The great Vorelli is a ventriloquist/hypnotist. With his glue on beard and perchance for planting post hypnotic suggestions in woman so that they come to him when he calls (usually in the middle of the night) he's equal parts cruel and sleazy. His ventriloquist act involves him verbally abusing his dummy Hugo, until he talks back. Vorelli then makes him get up and walk unaided to the front of the stage and apologise to the amazed audience.

A reporter seeing Hugo walk by himself decides to discover the secret of the trick and persuades his friend Marianne to to distract Vorelli so he can get a closer look at Hugo.

Unfortunately Marianne is soon coming when Vorelli calls...


YES - hypnotism AND ventriloquism what more do you need