Demons of the Mind is set in Austria where Baron Friedrich Zorn (Robert Hardy) lives in a large estate, in his huge house he keeps his two children Elizabeth (Gillian Hills) & Emil (Shane Briant) permanently locked up fearing that they have genetically inherited the madness that runs through his family & from which he himself suffers from. In desperation the Baron sends for psychologist Dr. Falkenberg (Patrick Magee) who has been excluded from Vienna because of his bizarre theories & practices, once there Dr. Falkenberg gets to work & tries to determine whether the apparent madness & misery that runs through the house is inherited, all in the mind or if darker forces are at work. Meanwhile the local village is in a state of panic as several young girls have gone missing, after the bodies of these girls are found at the bottom of a lake the villagers march to Zorn's estate lead by a crazy Priest (Michael Hordern) with the intention of ridding their community of evil forever...
Apparently also known under the titles of Nightmare of Terror & Blood Evil this English production was directed by Peter Sykes & was made by the infamous Hammer studios in 1971 but wasn't released for over a year & even then as the second feature on a double bill with the gloriously great Tower of Evil (1972) which is a personal favourite of mine as it goes but is besides the point. The script here does away with the traditional Hammer horror ingredients like the classic film monsters such as Dracula, Frankenstein or the Mummy & concentrates on telling a tale of psychological abuse, developing sciences contrasting against superstition, religion & angry villagers with flaming torches (what hammer film would be complete with angry villagers with flaming torches, eh?). It's a mixture of ideas & themes that don't quite mix although the makers give it a go, add to the underlying themes some killings & some strange medical treatments & theories as well as some hint of incest then it's safe to say there's a fair amount going on in Demons of the Mind & it almost pulls it off, at eighty five minutes long it never outstays it's welcome but is surprisingly slow during the middle third & a lot of the ideas & themes raised don't really go anywhere & aren't particularly explored in any great depth. To try & cure his children all the Baron does is keep them locked up all day, the film never really ties the loose ends together & it remains unclear the cause of the insanity doing the rounds. We never see either Elizabeth or Emil as real people, they are merely what the script needs them to be & as such it's difficult to care about or relate to their plight. Overall I wouldn't say Demons of the Mind is a bad film & I liked the idea to make something a little more psychological set during this period as superstition & misunderstanding was rife & people may be more gullible & willing to believe in madness & demons but it does leave one slightly unsatisfied.
The film has a nice period Hammer production feel to it, some nice location work, good costumes & decent special effects help. There's some gore here, a couple of girls are strangled, someones hand is chopped off, someone is impaled & there are a couple of shootings while someone is stabbed in the throat & there's a gory suicide in which someone slits their own wrists & then gorily cuts their own throat just to make sure but unfortunately the censors at the time made Hammer optically obscure these scenes. For those into that sort of thing there's also some unnecessary & gratuitous nudity. Because the film has it's main focus on psychological issues there's not much room for outright horror, in fact there's little horror on show here as Hammer decide to take a more serious approach with the emphasis on try.
Amost certainly shot on a tiny budget Demons of the Mind looks nice enough even if it's a little bright & a little bit too cheerful at times for what is meant to be a dark story of psychological terror, incest, murder & angry villagers with flaming torches (yep, them again). The acting is pretty good from a game cast, apparently both Paul Scofield & James Mason turned down the part of Zorn while Dirk Bogarde was considered & Eric Porter pulled out after originally accepting the role to make Hands of the Ripper (1971). Demons of the Mind marked the first of appearance of Shane Briant in a Hammer film.
Demons of the Mind is an interesting misfire, there are themes & ideas & individual scenes that I liked along with a nice period setting & good production values but the story is a bit of a mess & never really comes together in a way that I could take anything from. A bit of gore also helps so while by no means a total disaster Demons of the Mind is not a classic either.
Apparently also known under the titles of Nightmare of Terror & Blood Evil this English production was directed by Peter Sykes & was made by the infamous Hammer studios in 1971 but wasn't released for over a year & even then as the second feature on a double bill with the gloriously great Tower of Evil (1972) which is a personal favourite of mine as it goes but is besides the point. The script here does away with the traditional Hammer horror ingredients like the classic film monsters such as Dracula, Frankenstein or the Mummy & concentrates on telling a tale of psychological abuse, developing sciences contrasting against superstition, religion & angry villagers with flaming torches (what hammer film would be complete with angry villagers with flaming torches, eh?). It's a mixture of ideas & themes that don't quite mix although the makers give it a go, add to the underlying themes some killings & some strange medical treatments & theories as well as some hint of incest then it's safe to say there's a fair amount going on in Demons of the Mind & it almost pulls it off, at eighty five minutes long it never outstays it's welcome but is surprisingly slow during the middle third & a lot of the ideas & themes raised don't really go anywhere & aren't particularly explored in any great depth. To try & cure his children all the Baron does is keep them locked up all day, the film never really ties the loose ends together & it remains unclear the cause of the insanity doing the rounds. We never see either Elizabeth or Emil as real people, they are merely what the script needs them to be & as such it's difficult to care about or relate to their plight. Overall I wouldn't say Demons of the Mind is a bad film & I liked the idea to make something a little more psychological set during this period as superstition & misunderstanding was rife & people may be more gullible & willing to believe in madness & demons but it does leave one slightly unsatisfied.
The film has a nice period Hammer production feel to it, some nice location work, good costumes & decent special effects help. There's some gore here, a couple of girls are strangled, someones hand is chopped off, someone is impaled & there are a couple of shootings while someone is stabbed in the throat & there's a gory suicide in which someone slits their own wrists & then gorily cuts their own throat just to make sure but unfortunately the censors at the time made Hammer optically obscure these scenes. For those into that sort of thing there's also some unnecessary & gratuitous nudity. Because the film has it's main focus on psychological issues there's not much room for outright horror, in fact there's little horror on show here as Hammer decide to take a more serious approach with the emphasis on try.
Amost certainly shot on a tiny budget Demons of the Mind looks nice enough even if it's a little bright & a little bit too cheerful at times for what is meant to be a dark story of psychological terror, incest, murder & angry villagers with flaming torches (yep, them again). The acting is pretty good from a game cast, apparently both Paul Scofield & James Mason turned down the part of Zorn while Dirk Bogarde was considered & Eric Porter pulled out after originally accepting the role to make Hands of the Ripper (1971). Demons of the Mind marked the first of appearance of Shane Briant in a Hammer film.
Demons of the Mind is an interesting misfire, there are themes & ideas & individual scenes that I liked along with a nice period setting & good production values but the story is a bit of a mess & never really comes together in a way that I could take anything from. A bit of gore also helps so while by no means a total disaster Demons of the Mind is not a classic either.