NIGHT OF THE EAGLE

Norman Taylor is a psychology professor lecturing about belief systems and superstition at an English university. After a scene in which his American wife, Tansy, searches frantically and finds a poppet left by a jealous work rival, he discovers that Tansy is practising obeah, referred to in the film as "conjure magic", which she learned in Jamaica. She insists that her charms have been responsible for his rapid advancement in his academic career and for his general well-being. A firm rationalist, Norman is angered by her acceptance of superstition. He forces her to burn all her magical paraphernalia.

Almost immediately things start to go wrong: a female student accuses Norman of rape, her boyfriend threatens him with violence, and someone tries to break into the Taylors' home during a thunderstorm. Tansy, willing to sacrifice her life for her husband's safety, almost drowns herself and is only saved at the last minute by Norman giving in to the practices he despises.

Tansy attacks him with a knife while in a trance, but Norman disarms her and locks her in her room. Her limping walk during the attack gives Norman a clue to the person responsible for his ill luck: university secretary Flora Carr, the wife of Lindsay whose career had stalled in favour of Norman's. Flora uses witchcraft to set fire to the Taylor home with Tansy trapped inside.

Using a form of auditory hypnosis over a loudspeaker system, Flora convinces Norman that a giant stone eagle perching at the top of the university chapel has come to life to attack him. Lindsay arrives at the office and turns off the loudspeaker, and the illusory eagle vanishes. Tansy escapes her burning home and rejoins her no longer sceptical husband. On their way out of the campus, Lindsay sees the chapel's heavy doors are ajar (left thus by Norman in his "escape" from the eagle), and insists on securing them despite Flora's protests. As she waits for him, the eagle statue falls from the roof and kills her.

Norman is forced to embrace magic to save Tansy and himself, ultimately exposing Flora Carr as the source of their troubles; Flora is killed by the falling eagle statue she used in her schemes.

The ending confirms that the supernatural forces at play are real, forcing the rational Norman to confront and use the very magic he dismissed. Flora's demise by the eagle statue—symbolic of her own manipulations—serves poetic justice, while Norman and Tansy's survival suggests a reconciliation between belief and skepticism. The final resolution underlines the danger of underestimating unseen forces and the consequences of meddling with them.