Review“The basis of fairy tale is in reality. The basis of reality is fairy tales.” – Prof DriscollOkay before we get into it North American readers may have run across the movie under the title Horror Hotel. Don’t ask, I have no idea why they change some flick titles for region one distribution. The film starts our run through of Hammer’s major rival Amicus as I got a box set containing what are meant to be the best of Amicus’s output circa 1959 to 1974. Six movies in total, most of which I don’t recognise the title of. Let’s hit this bad boy.
300 hundred years ago on March 3rd 1692 Elizabeth Selwyn was burned at the stake in the “city” of Whitewood, Flash forward to the present, and Prof Alan Driscoll is giving a lecture on witchcraft to his mixed bunch of hip cat students and girly swot types. One of the swot types, Nan Barlow, decides she just must go visit former witch-burning areas in order to add flavour to her final term paper. Naturally all roads lead to Whitewood as the Prof was born and raised there and can score Nan a room at ye olde Inn of Dark Repute. Do I even need to say this, not all’s as it seems in Whitewood and pretty soon Nan’s brother and her boyfriend are investigating her disappearance, cause you know cops suck when it comes to the investigation stuff. A pretty atmospheric black and white flick ensues. The City of the Dead (CoftD) is noticeably shot in a sound studio rather than utilising outdoor locations, probably due to budgetary constraints and no doubt also due to director Moxey wanting full control over lighting and camera angles. The director goes absolutely ballistic, however, with the fog machine, which surprisingly adds a whole bunch of atmosphere to proceedings rather than seemingly being overused, which helps the audience to get past the stage aspect of the movie. About the only thing I notice was Moxey is still filming in very much a stage production fashion; things are fairly rigid rather than the free flowing style of more modern movies. This also adds to the enjoyment of CoftD as clearly we are meant to be taking this very seriously indeed. The Director may not have the budget here but he is still doing the best he can with limited resources. Framing shots, particularly in the first act, are superb; though as the action heats up Moxey tends to throw the artistic stuff out the window with the bath water. CoftD should be a text book example of how to construct a movie with a limited budget yet still manage to get that movie hitting well out of its weight group. Modern audiences may marvel at where exactly Director Brian Singer spent over $200 million on Superman Returns, but with CoftD you are left wondering how Moxley managed to construct his movie with next to no budget. Considering this movie is a U.K effort you can be excused for confusion over why exactly everyone is running around with a U.S. accent. Even the dark prince of U.K. horror himself, Christopher Lee, does a decent job of fooling us into believing we are watching something under the UIP banner. Clearly Amicus have thrown a zero budget into things, demanded the movie appear as “American” as possible, and quite possibly ticked off all their William Castle boxes in an attempt to get a hit in horror movie central. I wasn’t overly concerned over the approach; CoftD stands as pretty atmospheric, but I was bemused at the attempt to pass off one of the more recognised Pinewood sound stages as a U.S. college campus. At least Moxey didn’t okay any attempt at filming the skyline of London, planting a cardboard cut-out in front of Big Ben, and claiming we are in New York! A whole bunch of lesser directors haven’t seen the inherent problems there. One of the strange aspects to CoftD is the similarities between the Brit movie and Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Psycho released the following year in 1960. Warning, major spoilers coming up, if planning on catching the flick then get out of this paragraph now citizen! Still with me? – and yes trying to put some wordage between the warning and the inability of people not to read ahead – good, the comparisons to Psycho are one of the more interesting aspects to CoftD. For audiences of the time, the demise of Nan Barlow, and the inability of two square-jawed hero types in her brother Richard and beau Bill to save her, would have come as a major left field development. The development exactly parallels the death of Marion Crane at the hands of Norman after her decision to give the money back. This sort of thing simply didn’t happen at the time and a cinema crowd catching either flick for the first time would have been completely off balance. Moxey and later Hitchcock are in effect saying no one is safe and as an audience member you can no longer trust in the cinema conventions of the time. Revolutionary stuff, and once again an indication of how subversive horror can be if handled by people who know exactly what dog they are trying to keep to heel. There are a number of other parallels between CoftD and Psycho, but let’s keep something under the sheets for new viewers. Actually I felt like inserting a crypt keeper type chuckle in there, but figure I haven’t hit a major punch line yet. In the wash up, Director Moxey presents us with an atmospheric flick that contains a number of thrills and spills, and which maintains its pace from opening credits to closing credits. If someone is thinking of making a remake then I would definitely point them toward City of the Dead, the movie truly is excellent though dated for modern audiences. Also we could marvel at who they drag out to do the Christopher Lee role! Speaking of Mr Lee (Prof Alan Driscoll), the dude hits it out of the ballpark with a looming, threatening character. Lee plays it as only Lee can and makes the role his own. Venetia Stevenson (Nan) is completely believable as the co-ed with a line in naivety. Patricia Jessel (Elizabeth Selwyn/Mrs Newless) hits it as the buttoned-down villainess with evil intent. And Valentine Dyall (Jethro Keane) made me believe in his puritan character that had turned to the dark side. I couldn’t actually pick up a bad performance from our cast, which is saying something in a low budget horror outing. Surprisingly we even get some T&A going down, though it’s guys night at the cabana of ultimate doom. Venetia Stevenson gets down to her undies at one stage and has a prolonged scene prancing about in her black outfit that had me biting the side out of my coffee mug, woof woof! Douglas Gamley delivers a soundtrack that is pretty experimental for a 1959 flick. It actually works well in terms of the visuals and had me interested in what else the composer has done. We also get a bunch of jazz numbers, but boy if that was the cutting edge of youth rebellion daddy-o then the old establishment would have been safe to hit another couple of gin and tonics and leave the front door open. City of the Dead is excellent atmospheric stuff, though maybe “Hamlet” or at best “Village” would have been a better description of Whitewood. Directly Moxley throws on an atmospheric show that kept me spellbound, no pun intended. The movie is in black and white but this adds to the whole shebang rather than taking you out of proceedings. Excellent stuff and if this is an example of the level Amicus achieved then I’m in for a good time with the other five movies in the collection currently on my desk. Very impressive low budget effort out of the U.K. One of the crimes of modern horror is the demise of the witchcraft/satanic subgenre (we can forget PG13 fare such as The Covenant here as they aren’t even trying). It used to be a staple of the dark genre but has pretty much fallen by the wayside, one would imagine due to The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby being the definitive statement of what can be done in the subgenre. I would have no hesitation in stating that if someone could get a modern movie right in the subgenre they would have a hit on their hands. If you don’t mind black and white movies from a bygone, more innocent era then City of the Dead is well worth hooking up with. There’s an engaging storyline, the entire cast is above average, and the director knows exactly what he is trying to wrangle here. Book an evening at the Raven’s Hotel, you’ll thank me in the morning.
ScaryMinds Rates this movie as ... Outstanding excursion into Witchcraft.
|
