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City Of The Dead

City Of The Dead

List Price: $24.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: GOOD ATMOSPHERIC HORROR....
Review: AKA "Horror Hotel" this is a good little shocker in b&w from England. VCI does it proud on DVD with nice extras like the interview with Venetia Stevenson (director Robert Stevenson's daughter). She plays Nan Barlow, a college student sent to an eerie fog shrouded village to do a paper on witchcraft and winds up being a human sacrifice instead. Her fiance' and a friend come looking for her and find things indeed off-kilter. The whole village is witch infested save for a blind priest and his niece. Christopher Lee is the sinister professor who sent Nan there in the first place. This is a low budget gem that runs at a brisk pace and keeps you glued to the screen. Highly recommended for horror lovers.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the Best!
Review: I'd rank this film near the very top of the best classic horror films. It scared the holy bejesus out of me when I watched it as a kid in the mid-60s. One of the best atmosphere and mood setting films ever, sort of a film noir of horror. Luuuve dat fooog! What a powerful ending! I don't know how this film became such a secret. Watch it and try, just try to imagine modern Hollywood remaking it in color and with their typical teenage slasher bent--ha! Even Spielburg couldn't do it. BTW, beware of trap doors in your hotel room!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Kitchy and cool
Review: All right. This movie is sort of a guilty pleasure and I am giving this 5 stars not because it compares to Gandhi, or anything, but rather because for its genre it gets 5 stars. This movie is set in the 1960's and centers around a town where witches were put on trial and burned in the 1600's. A woman studying witchcraft in a college course (from an overly knowledgeable professor, played by Christopher Lee) decides to go to the town of Whitewood where the witch burnings occurred in order to find more information for a term paper. Let's just say that she doesn't leave disappointed. The cinematography is pretty cool and the b&w filming adds to the atmosphere. The story is pretty well written, and the movie flows well. All in all a good movie - it has scary bits, some unintentionally funny bits and has some sixties kitch feel to it. It is the best movie that you have never heard of (well, maybe not, but it is good - check it out!)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: im not sure yet.
Review: ill post more later. so far ive view this movie once

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This atmospheric chiller is a MUST SEE
Review: Being a big fan of CARNIVAL OF SOULS,a friend let me borrow his CARNIVAL dvd which had HORROR HOTEL on it as well.I watched it not expecting a whole lot but that changed immediately.The atmosphere is unlike anything i've ever witnessed in a horror film.Christopher Lee as usual,is terrific in his patented sinister role.Venetia Stevenson is STUNNINGLY gorgeous playing a young college student that goes to a small town to study witchcraft.Check out HORROR HOTEL,it's easily one of the best "witch" movies ever made.The dark, foggy small town setting is amazing.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Witches and atmosphere
Review: This review is of the VCI DVD - called CITY OF THE DEAD
also known as HORROR HOTEL.

COTD is a great creepy witch story with lots of atmosphere, a great New England setting and lots of fog.

The film starts with wonderful title sequence with faceless, hooded figures and medieval chanting. Then a recreation of a 1600s witch burning in Massachusetes. The exploration of witches in a fog drenched town. Finaly great tension and action in a graveyard setting.

If you like fun/scary, old style, black and white films that rely on atmosphere rather then special effects this is for you.

Almost on par with the original Dracula, the original Haunting, The Uninvited (Ray Miland), The Innocents (Deborah Kerr) and all the Val Lewton films.

The VCI version has great extras and VCI acquired a beautiful wide-screen print of the film. The VCI DVD is the best version yet. My only complaint is that the sound is a bit thin even for an older film but the original soundtrack for the most part excelent.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Better See This!!
Review: City of the Dead hasn't looked this good since it's British theatrical release! The DVD transfer is from incredible source materials and reveals to the viewer the most realistic version seen since 1960. The images are sharp with crisp detail throughout the film. Black levels are wonderful. This version is so vivid that you can feel the humidity from the fog scenes!
City of the Dead also contains the most complete bonus materials. Not only do you have an interview and commentary with Director John Moxey but an interview with beautiful Venetia Stevenson. Most importantly for those of you who haven't seen this edition, Amazon left out a couple of important details! City of the Dead includes a complete commentary track and a brand new 45-minute interview with film legend CHRISTOPHER LEE!! This is a horror fans dream come true! Don't miss the opportunity to view this incredible restoration. It will replace your Horror Hotel versions without question.

Rating: 3 stars
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: 4 stars
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: 4 stars
Summary: Real horror
Review: This movie scares you not by special effects, but by real horror. The music ( The closing theme especially ), The mystery of whats under the the trapped door on the floor and the atmosphere ( The desolate look of Salem ) makes it extremly effective. Its in the same realm as The omen . This is horror at its best.


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