It is weird to see the singer of “Doo Wah Diddy Diddy” in a gothic thriller, yet here he is starring as a 19th-century physician in 1972’s Demons of the Mind. Paul Jones was no longer in Manfred Mann when cast in this picture, so he wouldn’t have the opportunity to sing that line in the band’s “Blinded by the Light” so legendarily misheard for generations as variations on “Wrapped up like a douche thrown in the river in the night”.
But Jones is one of the few men among the leads in this Hammer production who doesn’t act like a douche. He is an apprentice to disgraced doctor Patrick Magee, who is travelling to a wealthy family’s mansion to address the madness which torments them. Patriarch Robert Hardy is haunted by the legacy of his family, which is incest. That had me wondering how that might be represented in the family crest. Hardy’s adult children are Gillian Hills and Shane Briant, who are desperate to continue that tradition themselves. Briant, unable to satisfy his desires with his sister, is killing the young and comely blondes of the village.
That village seems to be inhabited by only two dozen or so people, so it seems their supply of such victims would be expended quickly. But it takes a mysterious wanderer to incite them to riot. It is unclear whether this man is a priest or possibly just a delusional vagrant. Either way, he is played by Michael Holdern, in yet another minor role that is the best performance in a movie. When we first see him, he has stumbled into the village and is shouting his displeasure at God for the rain. I was reminded of the Nirvana song “St. John’s Wood Affair” and, if you don’t recall the 90’s grunge band doing such a song, then you have yet to learn about the 60’s UK folk-rock outfit of the same name.
Hills had been trying to avoid bumping uglies with her sibling by running away from home. For a while, she seemed to be happy shacking up with Jones before he apparently become Magee’s understudy. Then the only man who seems to do anything resembling work in the castle drags her back to the family home so they can…ensure she doesn’t have sex with her brother…what? And their plan would probably be more successful if the siblings were kept somewhere other than adjacent rooms at all times, ones that even have an adjourning door between them.
There is another woman in the house, and she has her hands full at all times. Yvonne Mitchell is the aunt of Gills and Briant on their mother’s side. She keeps a close eye on Gills, and is usually in her room. Mitchell also conducts a weird bloodletting ritual to drain Gills of her evil urges, something that involves cupping and making several incisions at once with some sort of device apparently manufactured for that purpose. I wonder where somebody would buy such a thing when you can accomplish the same result with any of those razors with more than one blade in them. My experience has been that, with the slightest slip when shaving with one of those, I end up with something like tiny, red Venetian blinds on my face.
Mitchell’s dead sister was a commoner whom Hardy married just so wouldn’t get busy with his own sister who…wait, he had a sister? Who is that and where is she? As for the woman he does marry, she slashes her own throat right in front of her children, which results in yet more psychological issues tormenting them, which will only exacerbate their incestuous urges…um, what again?
This is a surprisingly dull movie, even with considerable nudity, that element of Hammer films of this period which they incorrectly believed could reverse the decline in their fortunes. The scene with an extensive full frontal is an example of both the excessiveness of that nudity and the curious lack of sensibility affecting the enterprise overall. A village woman is brought to the castle in a psychological ploy to try to help cure Briant. Mitchell has chosen in advance the dress that woman is to wear, yet she and Magee tell her to choose one for herself. The villager does this stark naked, which is already preposterous and, in the end, is made to wear the one Mitchell had already settled upon.
Another moment which exemplifies for me the general clumsiness of the plot is Jones and Magee travelling together by coach, only for them to become separated after the coach crashes. Jones goes for help in the village and apparently stays there for days. He’s there long enough to witness the only truly interesting moment in the runtime, where the residents stage a ritual that takes the film briefly into folk horror territory. Then he goes to the castle and is startled to find Magee there. But that means the two never discussed where they were going or why. So, where did Jones assume they were going on that long coach ride?
Demons of the Mind is typical of early 70’s Hammer in many ways, with the nudity they eschewed in their earlier films in lieu of heaving bosoms that stayed in their blouses. There’s still the gore for which the studio was already famous, though this time there are such ridiculous moments of violence as somebody somehow getting their throat cut out by being punched in that area repeatedly with keys. But even with this level of tawdriness and weirdness the movie can’t overcome the picture’s true fatal flaw: it’s dull.
Dir: Peter Sykes
Starring Paul Jones, Patrick Magee, Yvonne Mitchell, Robert Hardy
Watched on Shout Factory blu-ray