THE CITY OF THE DEAD (1960) (Blu-ray Review)

THE CITY OF THE DEAD (1960)

Label: VCI Entertainment
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: Unrated 
Duration: 78 Minutes
Video: B/W 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1) 
Audio: English LPCM Mono 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles 
Director: John Moxey 
Cast: Christopher Lee, Dennis Lotis, Betta St John, Patricia Jessel, Venetia Stevenson

Synopsis: A college student, Nan Barlow is researching the history of witchcraft. Taunted by her brother and fiance, who have voiced their concern over her silly notions, Nan arms herself with resolve and drives into the small New England village of Whitewood. She is glad that at least she was able to count on the support of her professor. A bit anxious but consumed with curiosity, she will soon embark herself on the journey of her life! 

John Moxley's classic Gothic chiller The City of the Dead (1960) opens with a fantastic post-credit sequence featuring a witch hunt and burning at the stake in a deeply fog-drenched forest, where the witch Elizabeth Selwyn (Patricia Jessel) is burned at the stake, before dying she makes a vociferous pact with Lucifer for her soul, cursing the descendants of those who have sent her to her fiery grave. Years later a young college student Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson) travels to the village of Whitewood in Massachusetts over winter break on the recommendation of her kindly professor Alan Driscoll (Christopher Lee, Horror Express) to do a bit of research for a paper on witchcraft in the area. Once there she takes up a room at the Raven's Inn run by Mrs. Newlis (Patricia Jessel again). Nan finds the hotel occupied by some strange occupants indeed, namely the reincarnation of the infamous witch Elizabeth Selwyn who was burned at the stake in the 17th century. Young and naive Nan unknowingly finds herself marked for sacrifice by a coven of the witch's followers. While poor Nan goes the way of Psycho's Janet Leigh her brother Dick (Dennis Lotis), friend Lottie (Ann Beach) and concerned boyfriend Bill (Tom Naylor) descend upon Whitewood in hopes of finding what has become of her.

That's the simple set-up for this Gothic chiller, simple but effective stuff. This is a first rate British horror movie steeped in wafts of fog, cobwebs and intense creepy atmosphere. It hearkens back to a time when horror was creepy and not  just drenched in visceral gore, as such those with preconceived notions of something a bit more gruesome may be turned off. Those in the mood for a well-paced atmospheric chiller are in for a wonderfully eerie treat, directed by John Moxey, who wold go onto direct the classic '70s TV movie The Night Stalker, which sewed the seeds that would become the TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. The movie also has a top notch cast including horror icon Christopher Lee as Professor Driscoll, who of course is way more involved than it would first appear. Patricia Jessel is fantastic as the virgin murdering witch, by far she was the stand-out performance for me. Young Venetia Stevensen draws you in right from the beginning of the story as the sweetly naive Nan. The creepy slow build-up pays off at the end with a great amped-up finale that will leave you very satisfied. 

Audio/Video:  The City of the Dead arrives in 1080p HD having been restored by VCI with the cooperation of the British Film Institute in the proper, complete and uncut form, including two minutes of additional blasphemy which had been cut from the truncated U.S. version, which can also be found on this disc. Presented in the 1.66 aspect ratio the movie looks pleasant enough in motion with a good clarity and sharpness. The black and white cinematography s fantastic, the fog-shrouded fright film pops in 1080p. However, closer inspection reveals the absence of film grain, marred to a degree by the overly aggressive use of digital noise reduction. Brightness has also been boosted which only serves to accentuate the waxy lack of fine detail in the facial features and contrast issues. While not the most film like presentation, the overly-smooth new transfer is still overall quite nice with the notable exception of the digital scrubbing and boosted brightness. Audio comes by way of a lossless linear PCM Mono 2.0 with optional English yellow subtitles. Dialogue is crisp and clean for the most part, the atmospheric Douglas Gamley score sounds great, he was a composer would go onto to compose scores for many noteworthy Amicus productions including The Vault of Horror, From Beyond the Grave and Madhouse among others. 

Bonus content on the disc begin with no less than three audio commentaries, two of which where ported over from the 2001 DVD from VCI, one with icon Christopher Lee and another with Director John Moxey is more technical in nature while Christopher Lee covers a lot of ground, the star was in fine form on this track. There is also a new commentary from British film historian Bruce G. Hallenbeck who I am not familiar with, but he covers some interesting background, history and asides about the cast and crew, which adds value to the disc. 

Also brought over from the previous release are interviews with actors Christopher Lee and Venetia Stevenson, plus director John Moxey. There is also a new behind-the-scenes interview with Lee from 2001, which is around the time that VCI's previous DVD came about, he seems to be signing autographs and speaking about the movie, not sure if this is from a convention or something at the distributors headquarters, but it is a nice candid interview with Lee recalling the worst write-up he ever received from the British Press. 

As with the recent Blu-ray of Bob Clark's Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things VCI have included a shorter version of the movie in standard definition, the truncated U.S. version known as Horror Hotel, which doesn't look great but for the sake of completeness there it is. The disc is finished-up with a 2-minute trailer for the movie, a gallery of home video artwork, movie posters and images from the movie, plus text crawl video liner notes by reviewer Mike Kenny. About the only thing I would have hoped for would be a sleeve of reversible artwork, maybe the cool green schemed "Ring for Doom Service" Horror Hotel poster art, which would have been very cool. 

Special Features: 
- Horror Hotel, the American Version of City of the Dead (76 Mins) SD 
- Audio Commentary by Bruce Hallenbeck
- Audio Commentary with actor Christopher Lee
- Audio Commentary by Director John Moxey
- Behind the Scenes Interview with Christopher Lee (2001) (16 Mins) 
- Interview with Christopher Lee by Brad Stevens (45 Mins) 
- Interview with Venetia Stevenson (20 Mins) 
- Interview with Director John Moxey (26 Mins) 
- Theatrical Trailer (2 Mins) 
- Photo Gallery (3 Mins) HD 
- Video Liner Notes by Mike Kenny, Film Reviewer (4 Mins) HD 

The City of the Dead (1960) is a top-notch Gothic chiller, widely considered the direct precursor to Amicus Films, produced by Milton Subotsky and his future Amicus partner Max J. Rosenberg, a company that would go onto rival Hammer in terms of output, making a slew of '70s anthology horror movies. The new Blu-ray from VCI is stuffed with value-added bonus content, though marred slightly by a waxy transfer, but there is more than enough value on this budget minded Blu-ray to warrant a high recommend. Next to receive the HD treatment from VCI is the '70s paranormal-shocker Ruby with an unhinged Piper Laurie!. 4/5

 

DVD Review: SCREAM THEATER VOL. 4 - THE CITY OF THE DEAD/LEGEND OF THE WITCHES

SCREAM THEATER VOL. 4 

THE CITY OF THE DEAD (1960) + LEGEND OF THE WITCHES (1696) 

Label: VCI Entertainment
Region Code: 0 NTSC

Rating: Unrated 

Duration: 78 Minutes / 72 Minutes 

Video: 16x9  (1.66:1) /  4x3 (1.33:1) 

Audio: English Dolby Digital Mono
Cast: Christopher Lee, Dennis Lotis, Betta St John, Patricia Jessel, Venetia Stevenson

Director: John Moxey / Malcolm Leigh

John Moxley's Gothic  chiller City of the Dead (1960) opens with a fantastic post-credit sequence featuring a witch hunt and burning at the stake in a deeply fog-drenched forest, the witch Elizabeth Selwyn is taken and burned at the stake, before her demise she makes a pact with Lucifer for her soul. Years later a young college student Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson) travels to the village of Whitewood in Massachusetts over winter break on the recommendation of her professor Alan Driscoll  (Christopher Lee) to do research for a paper on witchcraft. Once there she takes up residence at the Raven's Inn run by Mrs. Newlis. Nan finds the hotel occupied by some strange occupants indeed, namely the reincarnation of the infamous witch Elizabeth Selwyn (Patricia Jessel) who was burned at the stake in the 17th century. The blonde cutey has unknowingly found herself marked for sacrifice by a coven of the witch's followers. While poor Nan goes the way of Psycho's Janet Leigh her brother Dick (Dennis Lotis), friend Lottie (Ann Beach) and boyfriend  Bill (Tom Naylor) descend upon Whitewood in hopes of finding what has become of her.

That's the set-up, it's simple and effective. This is a first rate British chiller steeped in fog, cobwebs and creepy atmosphere. It hearkens back to a time when horror was creepy and not so steeped in visceral gore and blood-letting, as such those with preconceived notions of something a bit more gruesome may be turned off. Those in the mood for a well-paced atmospheric chiller are in for a treat. We have a small rural village, a cast of creepy characters, the old dark hotel, stony walled catacombs laden in cobwebs and a great cast. Christopher Lee's Prof. Driscoll is of course more involved that it would first appear, Patricia Jessel as the virgin murdering witch fantastic - the stand-out performance and Venetia Stevensen as the smartly naive Nan draws you in right from the beginning. All this creepy build-up pays off at the end with a great finale, this is a top notch chiller, a definite high recommend.

The second feature on this double bill appropriately enough is director Malcolm Leigh's documentary Legend of the Witches (1969). It traces the historical origins of witchcraft in moon-worship and the witches’ legend of creation, it also traces some of these pagan rites to their eventual adoption by Christianity. On paper this seemed like a great double bill but I just found this documentary a bit too dry for me to sink my teeth into at one point tuning it out completely and listening to Black Sabbath's Masters of Reality album with the TV muted, which made for some great imagery in the background which was altogether more interesting to me than watching the doc itself.

The Scream Theater double feature is bare-bones meaning you lose out on the features from VCI's single-disc editions which is not too insignificant, The City of the Dead edition comes with a feature length Commentary with actor Christopher Lee, a 45-minute Interview with Christopher Lee plus the Legend of the Witches contained a trailer, the latter of which is not a problematic but that commentary and interview with icon Christopher Lee is missed! This is a great set at a bargain price but if extras are a concern I say skip the dry Legend of the Witches and snag the stand alone City of the Dead DVD from VCI and let's hope at some point for a Blu-ray, this is an attractive feature and I would love to see it pop in 1080p. 

Both films look fantastic in black white presented in their proper aspect ratio. The City of the Dead look particularly fantastic, a Gothic chiller steeped in fog and cobwebbed creepiness that has been painstakingly restored by VCI (with the cooperation of the British Film Institute) and is presented fully uncut; containing more than 2 blasphemous minutes of additional footage cut from the U.S. version, titled Horror Hotel. 3.5 Outta 5