Dead of Night

 I'm only passingly familiar with the Ealing studios movies, and like most people I identify them with their comedies- so I was surprised to learn that Dead of Night, which predates Kind Hearts and Coronets by almost five years, was also put out by them.
 It's a movie that has a certain reputation with horror geeks, and I'm glad I finally got to it - it hasn't aged perfectly, but it's a fun, clever, well-written anthology film with the rare wraparound sequence that kicks as much ass as its individual stories.

 A few caveats: It's from 1945, so you have to adjust for the storytelling conventions of the time, and overlook some truly... expressive acting, especially (but not always) from the younger actors. There are also two versions going around - the 102 minute UK theatrical release, and a 77 minute US cut that, based on a quick comparison seems to cut out two of the stories completely.

 Fun fact: the film's plot structure caused Fred Hoyle to postulate the steady state model of the universe. How many horror flicks can brag about directly inspiring an important cosmological theory?

 The main story follows one Walter (Mervyn Johns) as he arrives at a rural home and is introduced to the group of people there. As introductions are made, Walter seems miles away, and soon explains that he's had recurring dreams of arriving at the house and meeting these people; he's able to provide details about some of his hosts, which he's never met before, and also predict a few events before they happen. His memories from the dream are very vague, but he does know that it turns into a nightmare by the end.

 His hosts are piqued, and in a fun turn of events, kind of delighted by this bizarre tale- they start testing his claims and throw out theories as to what's happening. The stodgy psychiatrist of the group (Frederick Valk) tries to explain it with science, to expose it as a delusion; The rest of them take turns sharing supernatural things that have happened to them.

 This is, as you might guess, where the anthology aspect of the movie kicks in, with each story its own little short. A racecar driver shares how a premonition saved his life, a teenager tells a spooky little ghost story, a woman brings up that one time a cursed mirror  almost drove her groom-to-be insane.

 The owner of the place then tries to lighten the mood with the tale of two golfers and a rivalry that would extend beyond death - a comedic tale that's notable for having Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne almost-but-not-quite reprising their very similar roles from The Lady Vanishes, and for being based off an H. G. Welles short story; other than that it's cute and mildly funny, but kind of boring, and it's understandable that the US version would cut this one. 

 And when the evidence that something is amiss piles up enough that even the psychologist can't deny something is definitely up, he commits a flagrant breach of patient confidentiality and shares his weirdest case - an excellent and really fun yarn about a haunted puppeteer.

 Once all the tales are told, the finale has the wrap-around story reach its final nightmarish destination in a great climax that does some really clever things with structure (let's just say the wrap-around moniker is wholly deserved here). This movie really does stick the landing.

 The writing is really on-point, with well-rounded characters and interesting relationships between them. Their dialog is a little stilted, and there's a bit too much psychobabble, but other than that it's full of wit, understated humor, and some choice lines. It's aged pretty well. Plot-wise It's interesting that the film justifies how perfunctory some of its segments are by framing them as anecdotes, which is a great solution to a problem a lot of these movies have (especially ones that try to tell more than three stories). And as mentioned before, the structure for the film as a whole is inventive and very clever.

 The film looks great, with a lot of variety in the sets and some lovely photography, especially when it goes full gothic for Sally's ghost story. I also probably shouldn't leave the creepiness of that fucking puppet uncommented on; Makes sense it seeded nightmares for generations! There are barely any special effects whatsoever - most of them are on the golfer's story, which makes sense as most of the other stories are pretty grounded.

 The score, by George Auric is a little intrusive at times but pretty effective, especially when recurring themes emerge and comment on the action.

 I often feel I get to movies like these too late, that there's too much cultural distance for me to appreciate them properly, but I enjoyed this one.