HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2019: City of The Dead (1960)

Well, because of illness, it does look like the Horrorfest will be going into overtime.  After this, there are two more films, both of which are sponsored, so you’ll have to wait until early November to experience some pulpy adventure horror and one of the more...regrettable...sequels in a landmark super-slasher franchise.

But first, The Randomizer spat out today’s feature, a black and white story of witchcraft that features Christopher Lee, was directed by the director of both my favorite episode of The Avengers and The Night Stalker and, surprisingly, was co-produced by Milton Subotsky of Amicus fame.  So now I’m super interested!

We’ve encountered a couple of films during the Horrorfest which were designed to make American filmgoers think they were watching a British horror film.  Well, this is a film made in Britian featuring British actors performing on a hallowed British soundstage that is trying its damndest to make us think it’s an American production set in a creepy New England small town.  And, like most of these films, it fails utterly in its conceit.

Nan Barlow (a thoroughly wooden Venetia Stevenson) is doing her term paper on witchcraft, and goes to Whitewood on the recommendation of her professor, Alan Driscoll (Christopher Lee).  Shortly after checking into the rather suspiciously named Raven Inn, Nan disappears.  This prompts her brother Richard (Dennis Lotis) and her boyfriend Bill (Tom Naylor) to visit the town to discover what really happened, joining forces with recent arrival Patricia (Betta St. John) to uncover a sinister cult with a penchant for sacrificing young girls.

I remember reading in a couple of books about this film.  In those books, I recall them mildly praising it for its atmosphere.  Now that I have seen it, I am confounded as to why it received praise.  It is so full of artificiality that it seemed like a product of an earlier era--hell, it seemed more like said product than some of the films I covered that were produced earlier than its 1960 release date.   It didn’t help that, save for Lee and the great character actor Valentine Dyall, none of the cast seemed capable of maintaining a convincing American accent.  Every time Lotis opens his mouth, sounding for all the world like he’s working on a particularly stale jawbreaker, I can’t take him seriously.  It’s obvious that this was shot on a series of sets, and the crew’s attempts to disguise the artificiality of the Whitewood ‘exteriors’ by dousing the whole place with a smoke machine so overzealous I was wondering if there was a brushfire perpetually going on offscreen was silly.  The villains are so cartoonish that Nan comes off as a real oblivious clot as she stumbles into her fate.  And the climax, where we learn that the shadow of the cross causes witches to burst into flame, is really silly.

I will give this film credit for one thing, though--and I’m about to enter into spoilers for a film I am not going to recommend.  So please tread carefully this next paragraph.

You see, Nan is the point of view character from pretty much the jump, and all indicators are that she will be the heroine, or at least the girl school screamer that her brother and boyfriend would have to save.  But after the forty minute mark, she is killed (after a really puzzling scene where she shows off a set of lingerie that would seem to indicate she was looking to hook up).  At first, I thought writer George Baxt was ripping off Psycho, except that Psycho was only released two months before!  I wouldn’t call it a surprising twist, as Nan is horridly oblivious to the witch coven that is planning to drive a sword through her breasts, but I will call it pretty gutsy.  If some time had been spent building up Patricia as the real female lead, I would have been really impressed.

Thankfully, Milton Subotsky decided not to follow the Anthony I. Ginnane route and ended up co-founding Amicus, a studio that I have infinite fondness for because of their series of horror anthology films...all of which embrace their Britishness instead of concealing it.

As I mentioned before, I cannot recommend this movie.  Even at 77 minutes, my attention was diverted and my nerves gotten on.

Next time (I hope I may have the energy to do both of the final films tomorrow), our sponsor is Evan from The Lurking Transmission horror anthology podcast!  Evan has chosen for me 2011‘s The Devil’s Rock, a pulpy Kiwi yarn about WWII soldiers fighting Nazi-summoned demons!

Anyone who joins the Domicile of Dread Patreon at the $3 or more slot not only gets bits of writing and exclusive podcasts (like the upcoming Pacific Rim Rialto and the Halloween audio chapbook Wings of Fame), but can sponsor one of those slots and choose the film I have to watch and report on!