…was to have been the original title of this offbeat Hammer offering which attempts to combine their trademark Gothic settings with the type of PSYCHO inspired thrillers like HYSTERIA or MANIAC that they churned out during the early 1960s. For the most part it’s a very successful marriage thanks to lush visuals, committed performances, and an interesting if somewhat convoluted storyline. Robert Hardy plays Baron Zorn, the tyrannical head of a family who keeps his young adult offspring (Shane Briant, Gillian Hills) imprisoned in the family castle because he fears they are tainted with “hereditary madness”. Mesmerist Patrick Magee claims he can cure them only to discover that Hardy is the cause of all the trouble which includes feelings of incest between brother and sister and a number of dead female villagers. Throw in Michael Hordern’s wandering mad priest and you have the makings of a grand, grim, and grisly climax.
I thoroughly enjoyed DEMONS OF THE MIND (the title reminded me of the “Monsters from the Id” line from FORBIDDEN PLANET) but I can easily see how others wouldn’t. It’s far too verbose for a horror film with not enough violent action until the very end when all hell breaks loose leaving us with an ending similar to that of WITCHFINDER GENERAL. Yet it’s a delight to hear old pros Hardy, Magee, and Hordern strut their vocal stuff by making the rather dense dialogue sound a lot more meaningful than it actually is. The photography is lovely, the musical score is subdued, and the physical settings are extremely convincing making DEMONS OF THE MIND a quality effort, just not a popular one. If you’re of a literary or theatrical bent then you can enjoy DEMONS as a kind of Jacobean tragedy. I applaud Hammer for making this film but like many of its characters, it was doomed from the start.
The Capsule Critic 