Steve-Calvert.co.uk
Steve-Calvert.co.uk
A Passion For Horror
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More Public Domain Horror Films ___
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Horror Hotel (1960)(a.k.a The City of the Dead)
Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey Horror Hotel, also known as The City of the Dead, was released in 1960. It is a black and white film and the special effects are limited, but Horror Hotel doesn't need the benefits of colour or modern FX gizmos to make it a firm favourite with me. Neither is there any blood, gore, or guts in he film, and it manages just fine without them. In the traditional way, favoured by filmmakers of the b/w era, the camera turns away, for what would be the messy part in a modern-day film, and the viewer is forced to use their imagination about the rest: knife raises. clock strikes thirteen, the knife falls (scream) and. cut to another scene, where someone is cutting a cake. So if you are a fan of all that is red and splatters - and like to take a good look at your hero's guts-as he spills them onto the floor and falls face-first into them - then perhaps this is not going to be the film for you. If, on the other hand, you prefer a more traditional style of horror that has bags of atmosphere instead of bags of body-parts, then it is probably worth taking a look at this classic piece of cinema. The first few moments of the film are set in 1692 and concentrate on the witch, Elizabeth Selwyn who is about to get burned at the stake. It is quite a spooky scene when the witch-hunters come for her, appearing out of the fog, beating a drum and shouting "Burn witch!" The next scene is set in a more modern-day setting - at least it was in the '60s - and finds historian, Professor Driscoll (Christopher Lee) lecturing to his class on the subject of witchcraft. Strangely enough, he is focusing on the burning of Elizabeth Selwyn. One of Driscoll's students, Nan Barlow shows a firm grasp of the subject and he is impressed. When Miss Barlow tells him that she would like to go to New England to write her senior paper Driscoll recommends the village of Whitewood to her, and further suggests that she stay at The Raven's Inn, which is run by a woman called Mrs Newless. In fact, he explains, Whitewood is the very same village where Elizabeth Selwyn was burned. When Nan arrives at Whitewood she finds a lot of fog and a town that seems unchanged by time. She compares it to a picture out of a history book. Whitewood is always foggy, it seems, and people have a habit of stopping in the street and just staring at strangers while the fog drifts around their feet. They are a strange lot and none; it seems at first, are stranger than the local minister, an old blind-man who tends a church that has no congregation. His only message to Miss Barlow seems to be "Leave before it is too late." In fact the only normal person that Nan meets is the woman that runs the local book store who, it turns out, is the Minister's granddaughter. When Nan fails to turn up at a party two weeks later, standing up her boyfriend, Bill, he gets worried. He hasn't heard from Nan since she left, and asks her brother, Dick, also at the party, to ring up Whitewood and find out if the missing Nan has left yet. Dick doesn't have a contact number and rings the operator. He asks to be put through to The Raven's Inn at Whitewood, only to be told that there is no such place. Horror Hotel features a strong cast and the whole thing is presented quite convincingly. It has a runtime of about one and a quarter hours and lots and lots of fog. And I prefer fog, to the stuff that's red and splatters, anytime.
Dennis Lotis
... Richard Barlow
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