It's in the trees

[mxm@biosym.com (Max Muir )]

Dear Love-Hounds,

     Can anyone can remind me what the name of the film from which the
clip "It's in the trees!  It's coming!" (taken from the beginning of HOL) is
taken?  I seem to remember that this is a British horror film from the forties.

     My failing memory prompts me that in this venerable but well made
story, a number of hapless individuals are murdered (in ways too grotesque to
here relate) by a demon, who is summoned by the destruction of a slip of paper,
marked with runes and cabalistic symbols, secretly given to each victim by a
magician.

     The slip of paper, itself possessed of malevolent impulses, seeks to
escape from the intended victim and destroy itself.  The only way the mani-
festation of the demon can be averted (as it rises from Hell to claim its
victim's soul) is to return the paper to the magician, which, finally, someone
manages to do, and the evil magician is horribly mangled by the demon, possibly
masquerading as the 6.31 p.m. Temple Meads to Paddington Express.

Ian B. Fenby