According to the narrator, this fairy tale with obviously post-synced English dialogue "is the story of little Myrte, just as it actually happened, between midday and sunrise. The story as Myrte lived it herself." Described in the opening credits as "A film of the European Art Union", it was a Dutch-British co-production (shot on the estate of the Huis te Manpad, Heemstede); and anticipates those Eastern European children's films like 'The Singing Ringing Tree' that used to be screened cut up into episodes on BBC1 during the sixties.
It feels like an amateur film - not necessarily a bad thing - and although photographed both prettily and atmospherically by associate producer Bert Haanstra (later a distinguished documentary director) and full of both appealing and surreal images (such as the line-up of enormous, staring-eyed killer guard dolls), the film rambles badly; and Marinus Adam's score, while attractive, never lets up when a little silence would occasionally be in order to generate a bit of atmosphere.
As played by grotesque puppets (which reminded me of The Telegoons), the demons really resemble trolls or goblins rather than fully-fledged demons; but they certainly look creepy enough to give kids nightmares, and the film carried an 'A' certificate when distributed in Britain. Although their stated objective is to "destroy her soul", after they've turned Myrte's dog, goat and her dolls to stone they then take on human form (these demons can do this only between midnight and dawn), which makes them look considerably less scary than they did as puppets; and they don't do anything particularly demoniacal thereafter. Instead they stage a sort of interminable Mad Hatter's Tea Party which takes up most of the second half of the film; enlivened briefly by two female demons: one who rather resembles the Black Ghost in Edward D.Wood Jr.'s 'Night of the Ghouls', who just sits there not saying a word until suddenly snatching up Myrte's pet white rabbit and attempting to decapitate it; and the other a sort of spider woman with long ugly talons, who abruptly disrupts the tea party by bursting out from under the table, before turning into a ballerina in a tutu. It's that sort of film.
It feels like an amateur film - not necessarily a bad thing - and although photographed both prettily and atmospherically by associate producer Bert Haanstra (later a distinguished documentary director) and full of both appealing and surreal images (such as the line-up of enormous, staring-eyed killer guard dolls), the film rambles badly; and Marinus Adam's score, while attractive, never lets up when a little silence would occasionally be in order to generate a bit of atmosphere.
As played by grotesque puppets (which reminded me of The Telegoons), the demons really resemble trolls or goblins rather than fully-fledged demons; but they certainly look creepy enough to give kids nightmares, and the film carried an 'A' certificate when distributed in Britain. Although their stated objective is to "destroy her soul", after they've turned Myrte's dog, goat and her dolls to stone they then take on human form (these demons can do this only between midnight and dawn), which makes them look considerably less scary than they did as puppets; and they don't do anything particularly demoniacal thereafter. Instead they stage a sort of interminable Mad Hatter's Tea Party which takes up most of the second half of the film; enlivened briefly by two female demons: one who rather resembles the Black Ghost in Edward D.Wood Jr.'s 'Night of the Ghouls', who just sits there not saying a word until suddenly snatching up Myrte's pet white rabbit and attempting to decapitate it; and the other a sort of spider woman with long ugly talons, who abruptly disrupts the tea party by bursting out from under the table, before turning into a ballerina in a tutu. It's that sort of film.
