Horror Hotel

Tonight, we're heading into Whitewood, Massachusetts, a place where the streets are permanently buried in fog, the local hotel has some unusual ideas about hospitality, and apparently nobody has updated the town directory since 17th century.

Tonight, we're talking about The City of the Dead, John Llewellyn Moxey's 1960 supernatural horror film, which was released in the United States under the considerably less subtle title, Horror Hotel.

Personally, if I'm choosing between a town called Whitewood and a hotel literally [laughs] being marketed as the Horror Hotel, I think the second name at least has the courtesy to warn you before you hand over your credit card.

Our film opens in Whitewood in 1692, and we immediately arrive in the middle of a witch burning, because this movie has absolutely no interest in making [laughs] us comfortable first.

Elizabeth Selwyn has been condemned as a witch, and is being tied to a stake while the townspeople stand around watching.

Now, unlike a lot of movies about historical witch trials however, The City of the Dead clears up any ambiguity almost immediately because Elizabeth really is a witch.

There's...

That's it.

Until now.

We thought we'd kick things off with a film that's a bit obscure, but well-regarded among horror fans.

The first film from the producers who would eventually form Hammer's primary rival in the British film industry, Amicus.

City of the Dead, a.k.a.

Horror Hotel, the U.S. title, which is kind of sucky, was released September 1960 in the U.K., and I think conflicting reports say it was released in 61 or 62 here around the same time.

Yeah, so a lot happens in that movie.

And it's a short movie, but it's very packed, and there's never really a dull moment.

In the late 1950s, the producers of this film, Americans Milton Sabatsky and Max Rosenberg, had approached British Hammer Films with the idea of producing a Frankenstein movie.

This month is Season of the Witch, and I got four movies filled with witchcraft, black magic, ancient curses, secret cults, demonic forces, and the occasional unfortunate person who thinks [laughs] all of this supernatural nonsense can probably be explained rationally right up until something from Hell proves otherwise.

We'll be taking on Night of the Demon, The Devil Rides Out, The City of the Dead, and Black Sunday.

We'll be traveling from foggy English roads and quiet little villages to satanic ceremonies and cursed crypts.

We'll be traveling with Christopher Lee, Barbara Steele, and a whole collection of witches, warlocks, cultists, and demons waiting for us along the way.

Now, nineteen sixty was a very tough way to start as it's got some of my all-time favorites.

There are two fantastically atmospheric black and white chillers in Mario Bava's Black Sunday and Jean-Claude and Moxie's City of the Dead.

There's also Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face, John Gilling's The Flesh and the Fiends, and Sydney Hayers' wonderfully sleazy Circus of Horrors.

Over in the US, Roger Corman has a cracking little comedy in Little Shop of Horrors, and Vincent Price's Poe Renaissance is underway thanks to House of Usher.