City of the Dead

 

 

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This is a film with a rather simple plot, with some surprise about, but strong in the fields of emotional background and atmosphere. It has a brilliant score... now I see what the inspiration for "Ave Satana" ("The Omen") could have been -Jerry Goldsmith's-, because this film has a score that is vocal in most places and based in gregorian chant. I notice that there is here a blind priest, that also exists in the other mentioned movie...

Witchcraft, covens, satanism... this is what the film is about. And of course, it has many similarities with "Psycho". I wonder which one was first... no one in the bonus material interviews seems able to give a clear answer. I imagine "Psycho" came first, but I'm not sure. The presence of Patricia Jessell who, we are remembered, was Poppea in "Quo Vadis" gives character to the film. She is a really redoutable presence, admirable. And Christopher Lee, who looks very slim in this one...

There is plenty of bonus in this DVD: interviews with the director John Moxey, actress Venetia Stevenson and actor Christopher Lee, also a comment feature by the director and Lee -two commentaries, that is, not them together-.

Lee is always particularly interesting. On the one hand he displays an enormous erudition, is great in telling stories, comments and comparisons about how were films made before and how are they done now. But here and there he surprises us with some strange affirmations. He says in passing that satanism exists, is alive and working. His interviewer says that they are "sick" people, but Lee makes it clear that some are, and some are not: that the governing elite (that includes people in politics and high finance) takes advantadge of despaired, wretched persons and "sexually deprived" individuals (?) in order to pursue their murky practices. He stresses that they do exist. Would it be true?

Back to the film, it is recommendable to horror fans. Black&White, not very long, good straightforward performances...

It's 1960 with a jazzy score. Christopher Lee is professor of history at an eastern college trying to get through to these teenagers that witchcraft in New England in the late seventeenth century is an important subject.

Only beautiful, blonde, virginal Nan takes the professor seriously. So she's the one he sends to do research in the town of Whitewood, where three hundred years ago a witch named Selwyn was burned at the stake for congress with Satan.

Bad things happen to Nan when she gets to Whitewood, and to another young woman new in town. It's interesting which virgin is saved and which one isn't. (Notice it's "is saved," not "survives" or "saves herself" like the Final Girl in the slasher movies that Carol J. Clover writes about.)

Spoilers ahead.

The one who dies is the one who puts her own studies ahead of the convenience of the men in her life (her older brother, another professor, and her airhead boyfriend). She spends the first half of the movie investigating and taking action. The cut from the witches' sacrifice to the jazzy, hi-fi birthday party leaves the audience expecting to find this young woman miraculously safe at the end too, but no. We never see her again and it's disappointing. (This comes from watching a movie made in 1960 from a post-Halloween perspective.)

The woman who is saved is not the one preparing for a career of her own, but the one who works at an unpleasant job in an unpleasant town while caring for her grandfather out of duty. (The self-sacrificing one tells her soon-to-be savior, "I'm glad you're here now," while the active female character tells her disappointed boyfriend that she's made up her mind to go to Whitewood and that he should go to a party they had planned to attend by himself. She'll meet him there.)

I would rather know the curious, confident one.

The acting in Horror Hotel (especially the older British character actors and above all Patricia Jessel as the witch Selwyn) is typically excellent.

It turns out Christopher Lee's professor was right. The seventeenth century really does reach out and touch the twentieth.

The 1960 British film "City of the Dead", or as it is more popularly known in the US as "Horror Hotel", has finally been given the deluxe DVD treatment it deserves. I have seen this film countless times since I first saw it on television back in 1966 in numerous edited versions, and in varying degrees of quality. Made on a modest budget, similar to the Val Lewton chillers of the 1940s, it has remained one of my all-time favorite horror films. Stage actress Patricia Jessel (she won a Tony Award for the role of the duplicitous Christine Vole in Agatha Christie's "Witness for the Prosecution") plays Elizabeth Selwyn, burned as a witch in Whitewood, a New England village in 1692. Selwyn made a pact with Lucifer prior to her death, placed a curse on the village, and has indeed returned from the dead, running the Raven's Inn (guests check in, but don't check out!), and, basically, all of Whitewood. The citizens of the creepy, run-down village, with the exception of blind Reverend Russell (Norman McCowan) and his granddaughter Patricia (Betta St. John), are all witches, so the place isn't exactly a big "tourist draw". Enter shapely blonde co-ed Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson, daughter of director John Stevenson and actress Anna Lee) who has come to Whitewood to write a term paper on witchcraft, upon the recommendation of her professor, Alan Driscoll (a suavely sinister Christopher Lee). Miss Barlow checks into the Raven's Inn, and becomes a sacrificial victim of Ms. Selwyn and her pals on Candelmas Eve. A subsequent investigation of her disappearance, led by her brother and boyfriend, along with the assistance of Patricia Russell, leads to a hair-raising climax. The film is chock-full of horror movie cliches, but they work! Dark, film-noirish photography, loads of fog, cobweb-filled catacombs, run-down graveyards, they're all here, and they are simply perfect. This film is practically a style source for Goths! Douglas Gamley's musical score (a hybrid of horror movie meets Gregorian chant, with some jazz passages thrown in) is catchy and memorable, and the actors' performances, particularly that of the "heavies" (especially Ms. Jessel), are good , making for a very entertaining and satisfying 78 minutes. VCI has gone right to the source, the original British print, and has restored 2 minutes of footage that have been unseen in American prints, and that's only the beginning. The picture quality is superb, tho maybe a tad grainy in spots, and is presented in widescreen format. The sound quality is good, nothing spectacular, and then there are the extra features! Interviews with director John Llewellyn Moxey, Christopher Lee (that's "Sir" Christopher Lee now!), and Venetia Stevenson, talent bios, a photo gallery, the original American teaser-trailer, and fun art and graphics add immeasurably to this love letter DVD to a well-made, genuinely creepy film. If you are a fan of classic horror films, this is a must-own. If you are an aspiring horror-film maker, this is an excellent textbook example on how to make a well-crafted, tight film on a modest budget. "Those fingers through my hair, that sly, come-hither stare, that strips my conscience bare..."

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5.0 out of 5 stars A Chris Lee Gem!
Christopher Lee has been an amazing actor, and in the twilight of this career at over 80 years old he is still doing fine work in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and Star Wars II... Read more

Published on Nov 5 2003 by Deborah MacGillivray

5.0 out of 5 stars Scary and eerie witch tale.
I first saw this movie in the mid 70's late one Saturday night on Sinister Cinema in Portland, OR and it kind of scared the crap out of me. Read more

Published on Oct 17 2002 by Troy M. Ros

5.0 out of 5 stars This atmospheric chiller is a MUST SEE
Being a big fan of CARNIVAL OF SOULS,a friend let me borrow his CARNIVAL dvd which had HORROR HOTEL on it as well. Read more

Published on Mar 22 2002

4.0 out of 5 stars Best version yet of creepy witch flick
Note: This review is about the Roan Horror Hotel DVD, NOT the VCI City of the Dead DVD!! While Horror Hotel/City of the Dead falls just short of being a certified horror classic,... Read more

Published on Sep 22 2001 by Surfink

4.0 out of 5 stars A cult classic full of surprises
I came across this particular DVD at a local store and passed on it. I further investigated it on Amazon and after reading the reviews quickly picked it up. Read more

Published on Dec 19 2000

5.0 out of 5 stars THE BEST OF THE WORST
When I discovered that this classic movie was in DVD format, I immediately bought it. HORROR HOTEL is a gem in that "Bad Movie" genre. Read more

Published on Nov 23 1999 by Tony Sepulveda

5.0 out of 5 stars This is mother of all witch movies!
Forgive the plot, but this moody horror gem deserves more recogition as a true horror classic, right up there with "Psycho. Read more

Published on Oct 16 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars A great, scary classic thriller.
I used to watch this movie on Chiller Theatre when I was a kid and it always scared the hell out of me. Read more

Published on July 26 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars A forgotten horror classic
A college student studying witchcraft travels to the spooky, fog shrouded town of Whitewater where she learns far more about witches and witchcraft than anyone would ever want to... Read more

Published on Jun 1 1999 by B. W. Fairbanks

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliance on a budget
HORROR HOTEL is what B movies is all about. It has stacks to offer: atmosphere, unintentional laughs, gimmicks and lots of suspence. Read more

Published on May 31 1999

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