wytchcroft

contains mild spoilers for the film and for the tv show dollhouse

Demons of the mind

This is the last part of a brief exploration of three films starring Paul Jones, ex-vocalist of the pop group Manfred Mann.

The film is a period set horror exploring the minds and lives of the troubled Zorn family ruled tyrannically by Robert Hardy whose terror of a supposed inherited madness leads him to imprison and mistreat the children he believes may be in its thrall.

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It’s over a decade since I last wrote about the film Demons of the Mind and so it’s interesting to me to try and look again at the film from a new angle. Previously I had attempted to analyse the central elements of the narrative and the ‘meaning’ to be found therein; that of the implosion of the family unit and the attempt of the young protagonists to not merely transgress the societal norms that surround and restrict them but to transcend them altogether.

The film however is not so tidy as that, strange characters with complex lives of their own come and go throughout the film and represent both opportunity and its opposite (the remorseless pull of fate/society etc) for the main characters of the Zorn family.

One such character is Carl Richter played by Paul Jones.

white knight? Carl Richter

Jones, by 1972, was well beyond his previously established persona of laddish ‘pop singer’ and in Demons of the Mind he plays a romantic role, coming to the rescue of Elizabeth Zorn (Gillian Hills) after they have shared an all too brief idyll following her temporary escape from the confines of her family home and the dark pressures found within.

What kind of hero then, this Carl Richter – and what kind of man?

Certainly he is presented as attractive to the audience; he is shown to be passionate, yet intelligent. The books he reads in his home are by romantics such as Goethe but he is interested too in science – upon his desk a gold cross is to be found next to a geological specimen of rock and crystal.

Richter is therefore (at least initially) balanced between spirituality and science and though somewhat naïve and callow he nonetheless represents a healthy example of the spirit of his age, curious about the world and its workings. Being balanced he can thus chastise the mesmerist Falkenberg (the excellent Patrick Magee), with whom he shares a carriage to the Zorn estates - for although intrigued by Falkenberg’s career Richter deplores the lack of a guiding philosophy behind it. He is concerned as well that Falkenberg’s work is built on the suffering of the man’s patients. This is a neat combination of his romanticism and his intellectual idealism.

Richter deplores the attitude of Falkenberg
whose book we glimpse during the coach scene

Though his actual opposite in the film turns out to be Elizabeth’s brother Emil (Shane Briant), Richter does have much in common with Falkenberg – in fact in offering a ‘way out’ to Elizabeth he mirrors the role that Falkenberg plays in the life of Baron Zorn (Robert Hardy).

However, though the film shows Richter in a positive light for the most part, providing a sympathetic figure for the audience to root for, as with Falkenberg, Richter’s character has its flaws. By the close of the film his romanticism is called into question as he is unable to fight the dark workings of fate and Baron Zorn’s mind. His passion for Elizabeth is less noble than it first seems, as she becomes something of an idea fixee, and objectified to the point where the reality of her life, affections, family and situation are not accounted. Richter’s heroism seems self conscious – as if acting out a fantasy, the role of ‘white knight’ in a fairytale.

Richter confronts Zorn

This can be compared to the recent US television series Dollhouse and especially the episode Briar Rose. Throughout the first season of the show the character of Paul Ballard, a wayward FBI officer, attempts to locate and rescue the imprisoned Caroline aka ‘Active Echo’. As his attempts become ever more desperate, the apparently simple heroism of Ballard’s actions and motivation begins to appear more ambiguous. This reaches a climax in the aforementioned episode as Ballard finally infiltrates the stronghold where Caroline is held – and within whose walls he finds himself in conflict with both the (apparently) protective paternal authority of hander Boyd and a love rival in the form of the murderous Alpha - just as Carl must face both Baron Zorn and his bloody son Emil. Both Ballard and Richter react without thinking to circumstances and environments they do not fully understand but nevertheless attempt to impose themselves upon.

red knight? Emil Zorn

Throughout Briar Rose Ballard’s motives called into question – is his desire to rescue Caroline merely a psycho-sexual obsession, does she even need rescuing? References are made to fairytales and Paul is indeed self consciously labelled a ‘white knight’ (a phrase that recurs again elsewhere in season two).

To a large degree Ballard has failed to understand the implication of his actions and those of the people around him. This is true also of Demons of the Mind, as it becomes clear that Elizabeth sees her earlier time with Carl as a dream (she does indeed spend most of it with her eyes closed), just as she spends most of the film in a sickly half asleep state. (Similarly, the catch phrase of Dollhouse is “Did I fall asleep?”) Indeed, just who is Elizabeth? During the film she is revealed to be far different from the innocent heroine of Carl’s simplistic imaginings, though her tragic situation is not in doubt, and by the end of the film even her very identity is compromised indeed she may be nothing more than the vessel for someone else’s personality entirely.

The film was originally titled after a line in Macbeth; Blood will have Blood, and indeed this is a phrase that fits the events of the film very well – on a number of levels. In the end however Hammer producers decided to opt for Demons of the Mind, a title hated by screenwriter Chris Wicking. But Demons of the Mind equally sums up the essential elements of the film, the terrors that can be unleashed by the human psyche*, or to finger the obvious progenitor; Monsters from the Id. If the phrase sounds familiar that’s because it is the core phrase from the movie Forbidden Planet. Sci-Fi or no, there are some striking similarities between both films.

Just as with the scientist/father in the earlier film, Zorn keeps a reclusive base. He is studying hidden secrets even as the repression of his private terror and desire becomes manifest, threatening those about him – including his beloved and over sheltered daughter.

monsters from the Id? Baron Zorn and his daughter...

Of course Forbidden Planet plays somewhat coy with its subtext – Hammer were able to go a good deal farther; the Zorn family suffers a complete oedipal meltdown, Emil and Elizabeth’s affection is apparently morbidly incestuous but this in fact may be a projection of the Baron’s own uneasily repressed desires – just as Emil may be his psychopathic tool for murder, a monster from the Id indeed.

In Demons of the Mind the lines between good and bad, moral and immoral, youth and age, hero and villain are blurred completely.

Another example of this would be the apparently ‘mad’ priest figure (a tremendous turn from Michael Horden) whose hellfire mutterings actually hold more sense than first appears. With his burning crosses and exhortations to the inevitable angry mob, the priest stands as the absolute opposite of Falkenberg and it is the priest that provokes the bloody finale in which both justice and tragedy are mingled.

As for the film itself, I must admit to being sceptical that it would hold my interest, the years since I last saw the film have provided sophisticated productions from around the world, films like The Ring, Let the Right One In, Pan’s Labyrinth and Night Watch that in different ways have redefined the boundaries of the ‘horror’ genre - but I have been pleasantly surprised. Though the film cannot completely escape the trappings of the Hammer studio and the times, nor some bad wigs and the occasional hilarity of heroic skinny men in tights, still, Sykes’s direction is smooth and adventurous (especially considering the meagre budget and resources the film-crew had).

Opening with a long and almost wordless intro section, the drama develops without recourse to many of the clichéd shock cuts then so prevalent preferring instead to build atmosphere and a sense of disturbance through striking visuals often linked by composition and association.

hand and arm movements are used elsewhere in the film,
for example to connect Elizabeth and Emil over distance during the introductory section of the film.

By utilising the locations (the creepy village, the immense mansion,) to best advantage this approach yields some very beautiful moments such as the rain behind Hardy as uses the telescope, the willows and reed in the boating scene, the dense flack back sequences and the fascinating and authentic period gadgetry such as the nurse’s scarification device and Falkenberg’s Mesmer type magnetic contraption (proof that the set design, dressing and production unit were all willing to give the film their best, unlike some of the more by-the-numbers Hammer features).

paraphernalia fetishism - with an emphasis on arcane devices, and with a semi scientist hero
demons of the mind seems close at times to Tim Burton's Hammer influenced Sleepy Hollow.

Sykes camera, sometimes using subtle filters for enhancements, allows the scenes and especially the light and colour within them, to contrast naturally - and by concentrating on the film as a drama the grotesque elements (e.g. the Nurse’s treatment of Elizabeth, or the weird rituals among the villagers) do not seem grafted on. The sense of oppression and desperation in the characters is played out against an attractive summery backdrop (almost as in Sykes’s The Committee). And the clash between wayward religion and maverick science is fascinatingly incarnated by the figures of Falkenberg and the lunatic priest.

charlatan or shaman?
the shadowy character of Falkenberg is based in part upon the real historical figure of Mesmer.

It might well seem that Demons of the Mind represents a definite move away from the heavy weight political/social material of Jones’s earlier films and certainly by 1972 Hammer films were given scant regard and considered as little more than promiscuous cartoons and had already been much parodied. However, since Michael Reeves’s Witchfinder General (1967) there had begun a move towards more complex characterisation and a layering of social commentary within British horror as a whole. It could be argued that such narratives, with their emphasis on individual psychology, actually developed as a result of the radical work of the likes of RD Lang in the UK and burgeoning European cultural theory elsewhere. And if indeed the tenor of the times was more generally introverted by 1972 the division between the personal and the political was increasingly seen as artificial and illusory. Demons of the Mind certainly reflects this with its depiction of the Nuclear family in meltdown whilst the fractured psyche of the protagonists is matched by the unhinged behaviour of the society around them. The tragic failure of the main characters to move beyond their allotted roles and their personal problems, the missed opportunities for healing and growth through a balance of romanticism and reason, the overwhelmingly negative stance of the community at large – all could be seen as a commentary on the idealistic aspirations and perceived failures of the popular culture as it moved from the 1960s into the uncertain 1970s… and though the film is thus an obvious product of its time and social context, and though the horror genre is by definition extreme, there is therefore much to be found in the dark maelstrom of Demon of the Mind to intrigue and unsettle an audience today.

And as for Jones, both he and the three very different films he appeared in are proof that a great deal of interest may be found not just at the margins of popular culture (and its history) – but in the footnotes too.

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*There is a nice summation of this on the Alias commentary for the episode Nocturne, horror works best when the exterior matches somehow with the psychology of the characters interior lives.