Horror Hotel (1960) (nat)

Also titled, The City of the Dead, this one has Christopher Lee as Alan Driscoll, a professor of witchcraft who sends a student, Nan Barlow (young, pretty, and blonde, of course), to research her term paper in Whitewood (a tiny, New England town untouched by time) and stay at the Raven's Inn, which is own by Mrs. Newless (a friend of Driscoll's--he was born in the town). The town's claim to fame is that it burned the witch Elizabeth Selwyn in 1692--this is the opening scene of the movie. Nan goes to the town, much to the dismay of her science professor brother and science-minded boyfriend. There she stays at the creepy Raven's Inn in a room with a trap door in the floor and a mute servant girl who keeps trying to tell her something. She goes about her "research" (which really consists of reading a book loaned to her by Patricia Russell, the priest's granddaughter who has just returned to town) and is oblivious to the similarities in what she finds out about Candelmas Eve (when the witches sacrifice a girl) and what's going on right now in her life even though she's reading a book describing what's happening right now and Alan Driscoll told her that Elizabeth Selwyn was supposedly still alive and well and Driscoll looks ominous and threatening ALL the time. There's a completely gratuitous lingerie shot and then she's trapped and sacrificed. Her brother, boyfriend, and Patricia (who the brother obviously has a thing for and vice versa) try to figure out what has happened to Nan after she mysteriously disappears--the brother and the boyfriend both descend upon Whitewood. Then, low and behold, it's the Witches' Sabbath, the other night when the witches have to sacrifice a girl. Patricia is marked for sacrifice and the brother has to save her. Remarkably, the flirtation between Patricia and the brother doesn't amount to much and no one seems very sad or upset when they finally figure out that Nan has been killed . . . . it's as if saving Patricia stacks up to saving Nan. As long as we save the one girl . . . .



Not a terrible movie but sleepy, definitely, and full of plot holes (like the lack of emotion over the dead sister/girlfriend)--we watched it because it was the first on Joel's new "Horror Classic Movies" boxed set.