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24 out of 29 people found the following review useful: A movie to give you nightmares, 16 July 2004 Author: dbborroughs from Glen Cove, New York
This is the story of a college student who goes to do research in a small town and promptly runs into strange goings on. Its not giving anything away to say that the events involve witches of the not particularly friendly variety.This movie creeps me out. Even if I hear the music in another room my skin crawls. I don't know what it is but there is something about it that does not sit well with me. Eerily filmed in suggestive black and white this film looks like a half remembered nightmare, perhaps a clearer version of Begotten.I dread the prospect of ever seeing this again, despite owning several versions of it. (Hey, a good fright film has to be treasured)10 out of 10.Remember keep the lights on while you watch this.
21 out of 24 people found the following review useful: This is what you get, 6 September 2004 Author: Godzilla444
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
What a corker! This is one of those must have halloween movies. If only to see our beloved Mr Lee doing an American accent. This is a prime example from Moxey (The Night Stalker) of why most colleges do not teach witchcraft. There are certain things which having a reasonable knowledge of horror movies, one does not do. 1, Do not study the occult, as it will lead to many terrible things.2, Do not study the occult if Christopher Lee is your lecturer, as he is Dracula.3, Do not go to ancient towns to study the occult if Christopher Lee has advised you that it will help your studies, as he may have sinister motives and be Dracula.Dracula does not appear in this film but Mr Lee casts an equally dark shadow over this films proceedings, slowly drawing in both characters and audience with his fantastic Christopher Lee-ness. Although saying that the movie is of a high enough caliber that Mr Lee serves to add to the flavor of this great movie, rather than being the only reason to watch. A must have for all whom are drawn to horror flicks from the old school.
20 out of 23 people found the following review useful: Surprisingly good! Atmospheric and imaginative witchcraft chiller., 9 November 2002 Author: Infofreak from Perth, Australia
'Horror Hotel' (sadly the copy I bought has this tacky title, which is the only thing I can fault about it) really surprised me at just how creepy and atmospheric it was. I was expecting some camp fun, but it is actually a very effective and inventive movie for such a cheap effort. The story sucks you in, and the acting for the most part is above average. Christopher Lee is billed as the star, which isn't exactly true, but he is excellent in his scenes, and Patricia Jessel is even better in a very enjoyable duel role. I also admire how director John Moxey (his movie debut. He also went on to make 'Circus Of Fear') was able to conjure up a spooky New England town with basically just a few sets and some fog. A great example of imaginative low budget horror movie making at its best! Highly recommended to fans of 'Carnival Of Souls', and 'Black Sunday'. 'Horror Hotel' isn't a great an achievement as either, but it shares some similarities in style and feel. This is one extremely underrated movie!
16 out of 17 people found the following review useful: Creature Feature Classic!, 30 September 2005 Author: spider63 from United States
I saw this as a Creature Feature movie in New York back in the early 1970s when I was a young kid. It was one hellaciously scary movie. I have never seen this movie again on television, and I bought the DVD to see if it was as good as I remember it. Like Manster, it has aged very well.The effects and the mood are excellent. The harsh black and white makes the shots much starker than they would be in color. The close-ups of the faces of the vengeful crowd in the opening scenes creates a grim mood which drives the movie. Horror Hotel has some outstanding scares. It takes no prisoners, and like some of the best horror movies, nobody is guaranteed to survive.The head witch, Elizabeth Selywn is awesome. Patricia Jessel plays two roles. One as the original Selwyn witch who is burned at the stake in 1692, and then as the proprietor of the Hotel, Mrs. Newless. In both roles she personifies evil, and her evil laugh is one of the scariest I have ever seen. Sadly, Ms. Jessel passed away in 1968 when she was still young.Christopher Lee has a supporting role. His evil glares are better than a ton of special effects. The actors that play the good characters do not stand out much except for Ann Beach, who plays the mute girl that keeps trying to help the potential victims. The best roles and the best acting is in the hands of the coven of witches. The climactic confrontation that ends the movie is not just terrifying, but it is also full of drama, suspense, and great special effects (for 1960). The director, John L. Moxey should be given credit for making an excellent film. He was also the director of many movies and such TV series as The Night Stalker, Kung-Fu, Mannix, Mission Impossible, and more.
12 out of 15 people found the following review useful: "Burn the witch!!", 22 September 2002 Author: Backlash007 from Kentucky
Strangers rarely come to Whitewood...and for good reason. For it's inhabited with witches and warlocks...and Christopher Lee! He's absolutely menacing in his role of Professor Driscoll. Horror Hotel (aka: The City of the Dead) is a just an old fashioned horror story, it's even kind of creepy. I think this one is all about the atmosphere; a dark and rickety hotel located in an aging New England town that boasts an excellent use of fog that would make John Carpenter envious. It's something to be seen. Horror Hotel is slightly dated, but not too shabby. After all, "the basis of reality is fairy tales, and the basis of fairy tales is reality"
12 out of 16 people found the following review useful: Hugely enjoyable chiller, 28 July 2004 Author: Tim Groombridge from Exeter UK
Having not taken much time to watch older movies of this genre, I was pleasantly surprised by how comprehensive the film was.Black and white photography rarely seems to look this good, and has been one of the things that has turned me off such films before now. The visuals in City Of The Dead are so sharp and foreboding that they serve to accentuate the small town paranoia perfectly.In terms of the characters, Patricia Jessel as Mrs Newlis and Christopher Lee as Prof Driscoll, are supremely sinister, whilst Venetia Stevenson as Nan Barlow, is hopelessly deserving of the viewers compassion as the witches prey!I've come to love this film, not just for the sake of the film itself, but because it proved me so wrong in my assumption that most movies of this type/age are dull, it's incredibly watchable and tense.
9 out of 11 people found the following review useful: I'll get you, my little pretty!, 14 July 2004 Author: acidxian from Haddonfield, IL
Some witches are just bad to the bone. Elizabeth Selwyn is one such witch, and she's executed in a witchly fashion for it. Right before she's burned at the stake, she vows revenge on her tormentors, which is probably a fairly typical thing to do when a bunch of people are burning you alive. Despite the fact that flames usually do nothing good for the complexion, Elizabeth apparently manages to return with all her witchly beauty as an immortal being who haunts the town of Whitewood, and her equally immortal coven lives there with her among the perpetually foggy streets. She and her cohorts are in the habit of sacrificing young girls on holidays that witches hold sacred, and she runs a spooky inn as a lure for this purpose. This is an unfortunate reality for our damsel in distress, naive college student Nan Barlow, who goes to Whitewood to research the existence of witchcraft in its history. She learns the difficult way that old habits die hard, and our favorite witch, with the sly pseudonym of Mrs. "Newlys", is all too happy to welcome her to her creepy hotel, which is a lot like the Hotel California--you can check in, but you can't check out.In a "Psycho"-esque change of protagonists halfway through the film, Nan's brother traces her to Whitewood when she turns up missing, and pretty soon everyone involved is on a collision course with the nastiest witch in Whitewood.Oh, and Christopher Lee, too."City of the Dead", which also exists with the title "Horror Hotel" (which sounds a lot like something in a traveling carnival), is a deliciously spooky flick. Nobody's going to jump out of their seats watching this one, but it does have some excellent photography, especially in black & white, and the sets are truly eerie. Fans of more modern horror films will ultimately be disappointed, but genre aficionados will find this wicked black & white fun.
5 out of 5 people found the following review useful: Devil Worship in New England, Past and Present, 18 February 2004 Author: sol1218 from brooklyn NY
******SPOILERS****** After listening to a lecture by Prof.Alan Driscoll, Christopher Lee, on the town of Whitewood Massachussetts back in 1692 where a local witch, Elizabeth Slwyn, was burned at the stake one of Prof. Driscoll's students Nan Barlow, Venetia Stevenson, decided to do a term paper on the subject. Nan drives to Whitewood to get whatever information she could get on the subject from whats available in the towns records dating back to the 17th Century about witchcraft in general and the Slwyn case in particular. Getting instructions from a reluctant local living in the area Nan drives into the town of Whitewood and checks into the Raven Inn where she meets the owner Mrs. Newlis, Patricia Jessel, and her mute helper Lottie, Ann Beach. Nan, unknowing to her at the time, was to meet a fate reserved only for someone like her, an innocent girl, that was needed for the Witches Holiday of February 1, Candlemass Eve the Satanic mocking of the Church. Early Witchcraft and devil movie that predated "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Exorcist" but despite it's small budget is as good as either of those movies and the dozens of imitations that followed them. Eerie and spooky film about Witchcraft in New England that covers some 300 years from the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 to the beginning of the Disco Swinging era of the 1960's. The town of Whitewood is both in the dark and fog at all times in the movie with not a single ray of sunlight ever descending on it. This gives the town a really creepy look as well as unnerving everyone in the theater audience watching the film. It makes one feel that the movie was made in Northern Alaska during the time when it has six months of darkness instead of the state of Massachussetts. Gripping as well as interesting movie with a great ending sequence where good overcomes evil despite the overwhelming odds against it.
7 out of 9 people found the following review useful: In the Coven of Evil Witches, 11 July 2006 Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
On 03 March 1692, in Whitewood, Massachusetts, the witch Elizabeth Selwyn (Patricia Jessel) is sentenced to be burned at the stake, and her partner Jethrow Keane (Valentibe Dyall) asks Lúcifer to save her. About three hundred years later, the college student Nan Barlow (Venetia Stephenson) decides to spend her vacation in the town to research witchcraft. Her professor Alan Driscoll (Christopher Lee) suggests Nan to lodge in the Ravens Inn, managed by Mrs. Newless. Once in the village, the naive Nan is advised by the local priest, Reverend Russell (Norman Macowan), to immediately leave the place, where devil has ruled over for three hundred years, but she decides to stay and find that she is in a coven of evil witches. Nan vanishes, and the granddaughter of Reverend Russell, Patricia Russell (Betta St. John), pays a visit to Nan's skeptical brother, Richard Barlow (Dennis Lotis), and her boyfriend Bill Maitland (Tom), and they decide to follow her steps. Once in New England, they realize that a group of immortal witches have to sacrifice two beautiful women per year, one on Candleman Eve on February 1st, and the other on the Witch Sabbath, to stay alive forever, and only the shadow of a cross would be able to destroy them."Horror Hotel" is probably the best movie of witches I have watched and certainly one of the best surprises I have had with horror movies. Although being a low budget movie, the story is very dark, with good direction, performances and cinematography. The type of horror has the same style of Hammer movies, therefore fans of gore may not like it. The DVD released in Brazil by Fantasy distributor has a good quality of image and sound; however, the subtitles in Portuguese have many funny mistakes. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Horror Hotel"
5 out of 6 people found the following review useful: Chris Lee is a Menacing Presence, 16 July 2001 Author: marquis de cinema from Boston, MA
1960 was a year in which three horror films on a similar subject matter known as The Haunted Palace, Horror Hotel, and The Mask of Satan were released. The locales are worthy of Lovecraft. The opening scene is inspired by the pre credits sequence of Mario Bava's debut, The Mask of Satan(1960). Horror Hotel(1960) has an Italian flavor with its atmosphere and mystery. Whitewood like Dunwich is a cursed and unsavory little town. An underrated horror flick of the 1960s. Patricia Jessel gives a commanding and menacing performance as Elizabeth Selwyn.Christopher Lee gives an excellent turn as the mysterious Professor Alan Driscoll. One of his best roles in a non hammer horror film besides Horror Express(1972), The Whip & the Body(1964), and The Wicker Man(1974). Comes after his famous roles for Hammer studios in Curse of Frankenstein(1957), Horror of Dracula(1958), and The Mummy(1959). About a young student who goes off into an old New England town to investigate the phenomen of witchcraft. After she disappears her brother looks for her with sinister results. There are tads of Dennis Wheatley in Horror Hotel(1960). John Moxey films the horror with finesse.Professor Alan Driscoll in a way i alike the character of Mocata. The scene where the boyfriend of the missing girl crashes into a tree after seeing the image of Selwyn burning and laughing is something out of The Devil Rides Out. Christopher Lee does a good job in hiding his rich British voice. May be the influence for Lucio Fulci's Paura Nella Citta Dei Morti Viventi/City of the Living Dead(1980) and Dario Argento's Inferno(1980). For example Inferno(1980) uses a couple of this film's plot device. An intriquing line in Horror Hotel comes from Christopher Lee in the early first half when he says, "The basis of fairy tales is reality, basis of reality is fairy tales". Seems to implie that legends and myths are based on something true.
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