Demons of the Mind ** (1972, Paul Jones, Patrick Magee, Yvonne Mitchell, Robert Hardy, Gillian Hills, Michael Hordern, Shane Briant) – Classic Movie Review 6657

Robert Hardy stars as Zorn, a 19th-century Bavarian baron who keeps his teenaged children Elizabeth and Emil (Gillian Hills, Shane Briant) locked away and drugged for fear that the family insanity is hereditary. The madness is supposedly passed on as a congenital curse by his insane wife who has committed suicide, in the clichéd story in director Peter Sykes’s 1971 horror movie from Hammer Films’ final period of decline.

The girl Elizabeth escapes to spend some time in the happy company of her boyfriend Carl Richter (Paul Jones, lead singer of the Sixties pop band Manfred Mann), before being recaptured and forced to return to the family mansion. Yvonne Mitchell plays the uber-strict Aunt Hilda who runs the baron’s house like a prison. Patrick Magee plays mad Falkenberg who tries to profit from his apparatus that is supposed to be able to cure the children of their inherited evil.

[Spoiler alert] The gory violence happening in the nearby village turns out to be being perpetrated by the son Emil, apparently inspired by the unconscious fantasies of the father.

Demons of the Mind was not widely released, but it is quite busy and atmospheric, with some interestingly flashy style exhibited in the direction.

Also in the interesting cast are Michael Hordern, Kenneth J Warren, Robert Brown, Virginia Wetherell, Thomas Heathcote, Deirdre Costello, Barry Stanton, Sidonie Bond and Sheila Raynor.

Demons of the Mind is written by Christopher Wicking, from an original story by Wicking and Frank Godwin, and shot by Arthur Grant, produced by Michael Carreras and Frank Godwin and scored by Harry Robertson, with Production Design by Michael Stringer.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6657

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