Rating: 
Summary: City of the squashed
Review: I've tried this DVD on a couple of players with a standard 4:3 TV screen and in both cases the aspect ratio went awry; the whole picture seems to have been flattened out to fill the screen leaving the cast members looking as if they've come back from a few months on a really gruelling health farm. Very disappointing - did the makers do something wierd with the anamorphic stuff because all the other anamorphic DVDs I have display correctly (letterboxed) on a standard TV.
Rating: 
Summary: im not sure yet.
Review: ill post more later. so far ive view this movie once
Rating:
Summary: "Dig that crazy beat."
Review: It's 1960 with a jazzy score. Christopher Lee is professor of history at an eastern college trying to get through to these teenagers that witchcraft in New England in the late seventeenth century is an important subject. Only beautiful, blonde, virginal Nan takes the professor seriously. So she's the one he sends to do research in the town of Whitewood, where three hundred years ago a witch named Selwyn was burned at the stake for congress with Satan. Bad things happen to Nan when she gets to Whitewood, and to another young woman new in town. It's interesting which virgin is saved and which one isn't. (Notice it's "is saved," not "survives" or "saves herself" like the Final Girl in the slasher movies that Carol J. Clover writes about.) Spoilers ahead. The one who dies is the one who puts her own studies ahead of the convenience of the men in her life (her older brother, another professor, and her airhead boyfriend). She spends the first half of the movie investigating and taking action. The cut from the witches' sacrifice to the jazzy, hi-fi birthday party leaves the audience expecting to find this young woman miraculously safe at the end too, but no. We never see her again and it's disappointing. (This comes from watching a movie made in 1960 from a post-Halloween perspective.) The woman who is saved is not the one preparing for a career of her own, but the one who works at an unpleasant job in an unpleasant town while caring for her grandfather out of duty. (The self-sacrificing one tells her soon-to-be savior, "I'm glad you're here now," while the active female character tells her disappointed boyfriend that she's made up her mind to go to Whitewood and that he should go to a party they had planned to attend by himself. She'll meet him there.) I would rather know the curious, confident one. The acting in Horror Hotel (especially the older British character actors and above all Patricia Jessel as the witch Selwyn) is typically excellent. It turns out Christopher Lee's professor was right. The seventeenth century really does reach out and touch the twentieth.
Rating:
Summary: "Dig that crazy beat."
Review: It's 1960 with a jazzy score. Christopher Lee is professor of history at an eastern college trying to get through to these teenagers that witchcraft in New England in the late seventeenth century is an important subject. Only beautiful, blonde, virginal Nan takes the professor seriously. So she's the one he sends to do research in the town of Whitewood, where three hundred years ago a witch named Selwyn was burned at the stake for congress with Satan. Bad things happen to Nan when she gets to Whitewood, and to another young woman new in town. It's interesting which virgin is saved and which one isn't. (Notice it's "is saved," not "survives" or "saves herself" like the Final Girl in the slasher movies that Carol J. Clover writes about.) Spoilers ahead. The one who dies is the one who puts her own studies ahead of the convenience of the men in her life (her older brother, another professor, and her airhead boyfriend). She spends the first half of the movie investigating and taking action. The cut from the witches' sacrifice to the jazzy, hi-fi birthday party leaves the audience expecting to find this young woman miraculously safe at the end too, but no. We never see her again and it's disappointing. (This comes from watching a movie made in 1960 from a post-Halloween perspective.) The woman who is saved is not the one preparing for a career of her own, but the one who works at an unpleasant job in an unpleasant town while caring for her grandfather out of duty. (The self-sacrificing one tells her soon-to-be savior, "I'm glad your're here now," while the active female character tells her disappointed boyfriend that she's made up her mind to go to Whitewood and that he should go to a party they had planned to attend by himself. She'll meet him there.) I would rather know the curious, confident one. The acting in Horror Hotel (especially the older British character actors and above all Patricia Jessel as the witch Selwyn) is typically excellent. It turns out Christopher Lee's professor was right. The seventeenth century really does reach out and touch the twentieth.
Rating:
Summary: Best version yet of creepy witch flick
Review: Note: This review is about the Roan Horror Hotel DVD, NOT the VCI City of the Dead DVD!! While Horror Hotel/City of the Dead falls just short of being a certified horror classic, it is certainly not the campy laugh-fest some have described here. I can only assume these reviews are from jaded modern viewers unable to relate to a real story, preferring instead lots of "awesome" CGI effects and car crashes. Rather, I find it a solid, very atmospheric, and genuinely creepy film about a town dominated by witches. It won't win any kudos from practicing Wiccans (the witches are the bad guys and the lore is pure Hollywood), but for others seeking a relatively serious, mature treatment of witchcraft on film, this is a good place to start. The fantastic art direction and photography really generate that spooky, Hallowe'en aura. This is the type of movie best watched late at night with the lights off for full effect. (But be prepared for the fact that Christopher Lee's part is more of a cameo than a starring role.)
The Roan Group DVD, despite some minor flaws, gives us the best yet available version of this lapsed-into-public-domain film. According to Roan this is the first transfer mastered from 35mm elements and it shows. The film has been matted at 1.66:1, revealing a bit more information at the top and bottom of the screen than my Anchor Bay videotape, (apparently cropped to about 1.85:1). While the Anchor video claims to be carefully mastered from the "best available materials" the Roan DVD still blows it away. The sharpness, detail, and tonal values are far superior. It looks like a real movie now! There are occasional moments where the midtone detail of the tape appears to be slightly better, but this is only because the tape is too contrasty; 98 percent of the time the DVD reveals a wealth of detail in the frame where the tape shows basically black, white, and gray blobs. My only complaint about the source print is that even after "restoration" it still shows some sporadic light-to-moderate speckling, particularly around reel changes; not enough to really matter, but more than is evident on the Anchor video (which admittedly shows some vertical scratching absent from the DVD print). As for extras, we get production notes, chapter stops, and an "interview" with Christopher Lee, but no trailer (!!?). Alas, the interview (rather, monologue) with Mr. Lee, while mildly informative, is so poorly staged that it's almost painful to watch. He's standing firing-squad style in front of the camera, in long shot, with that deer-in-the-headlights look, basically just reminiscing, telling us some things we already know, and a very few that we don't. The lighting is flat video style, the picture blurry, and his talk is arbitrarily broken into chapter stops so you can't just watch the whole (reasonably short) thing at once. Mildly annoying. And throughout this entire segment I kept wishing Mr. Lee would sit down in the comfy-looking chair just to his left so at least he wouldn't look so awkward and ill-at-ease. I could've directed this piece better myself! The poorly done interview and lack of a trailer damn this DVD to 4 stars, however for fans of this film it's definitely a must-have for the stunning picture quality alone.
Rating:
Summary: CAMPY CHILLER
Review: Obviously filmed on a shoestring budget, this cheesy little flick nevertheless lingers in the mind - the atmosphere is creepy and there are good performances from both Christopher Lee and (especially) Patricia Jessel. A young girl named Nan Barlow is mesmorized by the subject of witchcraft, a course she is taking in college. Christopher Lee is her creepy teacher who has further designs for his pupil!.................The stage actress Patricia Jessel gives the most memorable performance in the whole film as the witch Elizabeth Selwyn who was burned to death in Whitewood, Massachusetts in the sixteen hundreds and yet runs the local inn as well! The film was obviously shot on a small budget but they succeeded in projecting a suitably eerie atmospheric feeling, and an otherworldly frisson quality lingers in the mind. Nan stops during her drive to Whitewood to do research on witchcraft and she meets Jethro! Her one friend is a mute girl named Lottie who is scolded by Miss Newliss (guess who?) for "bothering the guests" Corny but fun.
Rating: 
Summary: That Old Black Magic
Review: The 1960 British film "City of the Dead", or as it is more popularly known in the US as "Horror Hotel", has finally been given the deluxe DVD treatment it deserves. I have seen this film countless times since I first saw it on television back in 1966 in numerous edited versions, and in varying degrees of quality. Made on a modest budget, similar to the Val Lewton chillers of the 1940s, it has remained one of my all-time favorite horror films. Stage actress Patricia Jessel (she won a Tony Award for the role of the duplicitous Christine Vole in Agatha Christie's "Witness for the Prosecution") plays Elizabeth Selwyn, burned as a witch in Whitewood, a New England village in 1692. Selwyn made a pact with Lucifer prior to her death, placed a curse on the village, and has indeed returned from the dead, running the Raven's Inn (guests check in, but don't check out!), and, basically, all of Whitewood. The citizens of the creepy, run-down village, with the exception of blind Reverend Russell (Norman McCowan) and his granddaughter Patricia (Betta St. John), are all witches, so the place isn't exactly a big "tourist draw". Enter shapely blonde co-ed Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson, daughter of director John Stevenson and actress Anna Lee) who has come to Whitewood to write a term paper on witchcraft, upon the recommendation of her professor, Alan Driscoll (a suavely sinister Christopher Lee). Miss Barlow checks into the Raven's Inn, and becomes a sacrificial victim of Ms. Selwyn and her pals on Candelmas Eve. A subsequent investigation of her disappearance, led by her brother and boyfriend, along with the assistance of Patricia Russell, leads to a hair-raising climax. The film is chock-full of horror movie cliches, but they work! Dark, film-noirish photography, loads of fog, cobweb-filled catacombs, run-down graveyards, they're all here, and they are simply perfect. This film is practically a style source for Goths! Douglas Gamley's musical score (a hybrid of horror movie meets Gregorian chant, with some jazz passages thrown in) is catchy and memorable, and the actors' performances, particularly that of the "heavies" (especially Ms. Jessel), are good , making for a very entertaining and satisfying 78 minutes. VCI has gone right to the source, the original British print, and has restored 2 minutes of footage that have been unseen in American prints, and that's only the beginning. The picture quality is superb, tho maybe a tad grainy in spots, and is presented in widescreen format. The sound quality is good, nothing spectacular, and then there are the extra features! Interviews with director John Llewellyn Moxey, Christopher Lee (that's "Sir" Christopher Lee now!), and Venetia Stevenson, talent bios, a photo gallery, the original American teaser-trailer, and fun art and graphics add immeasurably to this love letter DVD to a well-made, genuinely creepy film. If you are a fan of classic horror films, this is a must-own. If you are an aspiring horror-film maker, this is an excellent textbook example on how to make a well-crafted, tight film on a modest budget. "Those fingers through my hair, that sly, come-hither stare, that strips my conscience bare..."
Rating:
Summary: An atmospheric chiller not to be missed!
Review: The Brits answer To PSYCHO, this underrated thriller is a gem! A student studying witchcraft is sent to an authentic witch burning town where she gets more than she bargained for. Horror flick fav Christopher Lee stars, with a spine-tingling performance by stage vet Patricia Jessel as the mistress of the inn, starlet of the day Veneitia Stevenson (she was married to Russ Tamblyn, who played RIFF in West Side story) as the student, and Betta St. John (the original LIAT in B'way's SOUTH PACIFIC) as a concerned villager. The opening credits are terrifying, and the music itself will haunt your dreams! Don't miss it!!!
Rating:
Summary: Room for One More?
Review: This great, over-looked cult movie should definitely be watched as a double-feature, with another British horror classic, "Curse of the Demon" as the second gem. Patricia Jessell is great as the witch burned at the stake, only to reappear in l960 to entice Venetia Stevenson (the blonde starlet who should have gone on to better things)to stay and be sacrificed. Wonderful musical score, knockout photography, where it's always dark, shadowy and the mist swirls relentlessly. A perfect example of what a group of masters can do on a low budget, with an outstanding cast who take their roles seriously. We can thank no-talent Roger Corman for his abysmal attempts at making fantasy and horror films, venerated even today by other no-talent idiots, to coarsen them into jokes, shoving gleaming little gems like "Horror Hotel" and "Curse of the Demon" into the background. This simply shows the differene between the British take on horror and America's.This is one hotel i will definitely be dropping in every month or so. Especially on frigid, misty nights.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, atmospheric...
Review: This is a film with a rather simple plot, with some surprise about, but strong in the fields of emotional background and atmosphere. It has a brilliant score... now I see what the inspiration for "Ave Satana" ("The Omen") could have been -Jerry Goldsmith's-, because this film has a score that is vocal in most places and based in gregorian chant. I notice that there is here a blind priest, that also exists in the other mentioned movie... Witchcraft, covens, satanism... this is what the film is about. And of course, it has many similarities with "Psycho". I wonder which one was first... no one in the bonus material interviews seems able to give a clear answer. I imagine "Psycho" came first, but I'm not sure. The presence of Patricia Jessell who, we are remembered, was Poppea in "Quo Vadis" gives character to the film. She is a really redoutable presence, admirable. And Christopher Lee, who looks very slim in this one... There is plenty of bonus in this DVD: interviews with the director John Moxey, actress Venetia Stevenson and actor Christopher Lee, also a comment feature by the director and Lee -two commentaries, that is, not them together-. Lee is always particularly interesting. On the one hand he displays an enormous erudition, is great in telling stories, comments and comparisons about how were films made before and how are they done now. But here and there he surprises us with some strange affirmations. He says in passing that satanism exists, is alive and working. His interviewer says that they are "sick" people, but Lee makes it clear that some are, and some are not: that the governing elite (that includes people in politics and high finance) takes advantadge of despaired, wretched persons and "sexually deprived" individuals (?) in order to pursue their murky practices. He stresses that they do exist. Would it be true? Back to the film, it is recommendable to horror fans. Black&White, not very long, good straightforward performances...
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