Demons of the Soul (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Demons of the soul |
| Original title | Demons of the Mind |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1972 |
| length | 89 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Peter Sykes |
| script | Christopher Wicking |
| production |
Michael Carreras Frank Godwin |
| music | Harry Robinson |
| camera | Arthur Grant |
| cut | Chris Barnes |
| occupation | |
| |
Demons of the Soul is a 1971 British feature film from the Hammer Films production with Robert Hardy in the lead role.
action
The story takes place in Bavaria at the end of the 19th century. A certain Baron Zorn resides here with his children in a castle. Not only does Zorn regularly drug his daughter Elizabeth and son Emil, he also keeps them strictly separated from each other. Both maturing siblings are therefore kept separate from one another, as they feel more for one another than seems appropriate for blood relatives. They are never allowed to leave the property. The baron firmly believes that his insane wife once cast a lifelong curse on the children before killing herself. However, Elizabeth manages to escape one day when she tries to meet a villager. But the baron soon catches her again and punishes her bloody. Son Emil also tries to escape, but is foiled by his aunt Hilda, who leads a strict regiment and guards the castle like a Cerberus .
Terrible things are about to happen in the area. First, several local prostitutes are found murdered in the nearby forest. The superstitious farmers immediately believe that demons must be at work here. A traveling preacher has arrived on the spot: he wants to teach these demons to fear, but nobody takes this man very seriously. A gossiping quack and peddler, the sinister looking Falkenberg, also appears at the castle and hopes for a nice profit by selling a miraculous device from our own production, with which one can supposedly drive the evil out of the children. Finally there is the young Carl Richter, who only wants to save his young lady of the heart, the Baroness Elisabeth Zorn, from the madness that is rampant in and around the castle. More murders soon occur and the bodies of women are discovered at the bottom of the lake. The fanatical itinerant preacher now sees his hour has come, incites the village population against Baron Zorn, and together the mob sets out to eradicate the evil in the castle once and for all.
Production notes
Demons of the Soul was filmed from August 16 to September 1971 and premiered on November 5, 1972 in London. The German premiere took place on December 19, 1989 as a television premiere on RTL plus .
Michael Stringer created the film structures .
Reviews
"Abstrusively constructed psychological horror film, which in its effort to go beyond the boundaries of the genre, repeatedly falls back into common clichés and acts of violence."
The Movie & Video Guide found the film “enticingly creepy”.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Demons of the Soul in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed on September 15, 2018
- ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 323
Web links
- Demons of the soul in the Internet Movie Database (English)