the CITY OF
THE DEAD

MOVIE REVIEW

You Support This Site
When You Buy My Books

E.C. McMullen Jr.
RUMOR

A city in panic as people vanish.
One scientist may have the answer, but is he telling the truth? Or is he hiding behind RUMOR?

PERPETUAL
BULLET

"'Some People' ... may be the standout story in the book."
- John Grant, Infinityplus

E.C. McMullen Jr.
WILLOW BLUE

"'Willow Blue' will burrow under your skin and stay there long after you've put the book down."
- Jeffrey Reddick, Creator of
FINAL DESTINATION

IN OTHER BOOKS
E.C. McMullen Jr.'s
short story
CEDO LOOKED LIKE PEOPLE
in the anthology
FEAR THE REAPER

"This Ray Bradbury-esque is one of the most memorable and one of the more original stories I've read in a long time."
- Steve Isaak,
Goodreads

HORROR 201:
The Silver Scream

Filmmaker's Guidebook
featuring
RAY BRADBURY,
JOHN CARPENTER,
WES CRAVEN,
TOM HOLLAND,
E.C. McMULLEN Jr.,
GEORGE A. ROMERO,
and many more.

Extensively quoted in

PHANTASM
EXHUMED
The Unauthorized Companion

And In
CINEMA
E.C. McMullen Jr.
Head Production Designer

MINE GAMES
(Starring:
JOSEPH CROSS,
BRIANA EVIGAN,
ALEX MERAZ,
ETHAN PECK)

Dept. head
Special Effects Make-Up
(SFX MUA)

A SIERRA NEVADA
GUNFIGHT
(MICHAEL MADSEN & JOHN SAVAGE).

Production Designer

UNIVERSAL DEAD
(DOUG JONES,
D.B. SWEENEY,
GARY GRAHAM)

Art Director

THE CRUSADER
(COLIN CUNNINGHAM,
GARY GRAHAM)

Review by
E.C.McMullen Jr.

Christopher Lee
ACTOR PAGE

HORROR HOTEL aka The City Of The Dead - 1960
USA Release: Sept 12, 1962
Amicus Productions / Vulcan / Various distributors

"Superstition, fear, and jealousy"

Right off the bat, I gotta tell you; if you be into that there Wiccan stuff, you sure as hell ain't gonna like this movie. For one thing, it paints all witches as them whats in league with the DEVIL! For another thing . . . well, no... there is no other thing, that's pretty much it.

The flick starts off in ancient times, about 1680 or so, and some nervous jittery folk are about to burn themselves a witch! Then we see that the whole thing is a historical tale being told by kindly Professor Alan Driscoll (Christopher Lee: DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE, TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA, THE WICKER MAN, END OF THE WORLD, GREMLINS 2, SLEEPY HOLLOW, THE LORD OF THE RINGS). He teaches an extracurricular course in witchcraft and devil worship out of his house in Massachusetts.

One of Alan's students, a comely young thing named Nan Barlowe (Venetia Stevenson: ISLAND OF LOST WOMEN), is headstrong and independent. Back in the late fifties early sixties, such women were bound to get themselves into trouble (remember Janet Leigh in PSYCHO?). Her friendly professor appreciates her singular personality and helps her with her thesis on devil worship and witchcraft. He does this by giving her an address in the old witch burning town of Whitewood.

It's an address to a hotel see? A possibly Haunted hotel. With friendly teachers like this you don't need enemy teachers! So the young and lovely blonde (brunettes in this movie are inherently evil and in league with the DEVIL!) goes to Whitewood, checks into Raven's Inn and merry mishaps occur.

The City of the Dead HORROR HOTEL was made at Shepperton Studios, which in their time and prime, produced such classics as THE WICKER MAN. Though the movie takes place in the U.S., it's fun to hear these British actors slip in and out of their accents. When watching old movies like this, it's easy to feel falsely jaded and make fun of it for being riddled with clichés. But the truth is, HORROR HOTEL created some of the tropes that were later done better, as well as done to death.

At its best, it contains many unique surprises as well as genuinely creepy scenes.

On the other hand, it's also hard not to draw comparisons between this movie and its contemporary, PSYCHO . Remove Norman and Mother and you pretty much have the same story of a young blonde woman who drives out to parts unknown, checks into a hotel, and meets her fate.

Like PSYCHO , the rest of the movie concerns itself with those family members like her brother Richard (Dennis Lotis), and friends like Patricia (Betta St. John: DANGEROUS MISSION, CORRIDORS OF BLOOD) she left behind, who are trying to unravel the mystery of her disappearance.

TRIVIA

This was the first movie produced by Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg. As Producer, Milton co-wrote CITY OF THE DEAD from an original script by renown Mystery Writer, George Baxt (CIRCUS OF HORRORS).

With this as their Horror movie calling card (they both produced the 1956 movie, Alan Freed's Rock, Rock, Rock), Americans Milton and Max stayed on at Shepperton Studios in England and in a business celebration of their friendship, created the brief but legendary Amicus Studios

Amicus is Latin for Friend.

Both movies were in production at the same time, but the movie industry was well aware of what Alfred Hitchcock was up to long before he began production on his film. With 10 years of growing success behind him, nobody doubted that whatever his next movie would be, it would be a smash hit as well. Amicus made sure to release THE CITY OF THE DEAD on the same month and year as PSYCHO.

American censors were appalled by some of the dialog, however, and it took two years before its American release, then retitled HORROR HOTEL.

Unlike PSYCHO , HORROR HOTEL is riddled with gaffs. At one point, a character empties his gun shooting at a witch, who just stands there unafraid. Good Lord! They are bullet proof! In his frustration, the character then throws the gun at the witch, who ducks! "Hey! Watch where you throw that gun! Somebody could get hurt!"

What the hell?

Though HORROR HOTEL was made on a very low budget, thanks to the sets and other equipment at Shepperton Studios, the production values were quite high and even today with some of the cheapo video production houses like, for example, Diamond Video, the quality of both picture and sound is passably clear: as clear as regular VHS. The end of HORROR HOTEL is really what kills this flick. So mind boggling stupid is it, so ridiculously easy are the evil doers overcome, that you'll be asking yourself, "That was the most obvious thing! Why the hell didn't anyone ever do that first???"

Those of you who saw M. Night Shyamalan's SIGNS will know what I mean.

Because, at turns, this film is creepily great, and the aforementioned mind-boggling stupid bit, I give HORROR HOTEL 3 Negative Shriek Girls for being so Bad It's Good!