City of the Dead (aka Horror Hotel) (1960)

City of the Dead (aka Horror Hotel) (1960): written by Milton Subotsky and George Baxt; directed by John Llewellyn Moxey; starring Patricia Jessel (Mrs. Newless), Dennis Lotis (Richard Barlow), Christopher Lee (Professor Driscoll), Tom Naylor (Bill Maitland), Venetia Stevenson (Nan Barlow), Betta St. John (Patricia Russell), and James Dyrenforth (Garage Attendant): 

The first entry in then-Vulcan Studios attempt to compete with Hammer's horror dominance of the 1950's, City of the Dead is an enjoyable, flawed mix of occasionally startling images and occasionally clunky writing and acting. It also criminally under-uses Christopher Lee.

Set in contemporary New England, City of the Dead begins with Professor Christopher Lee sending undergrad Venetia Stevenson to a small town to research her term paper on witchcraft in New England. Things deteriorate very quickly for Venetia's character Nan, signaled by a fog bank so impenetrable as she heads into the town that one wonders how she ever made it to the Horror Hotel in the first place.

A series of horrible happenings follow. The movie looks really good throughout, and a number of scenes have been carefully staged for horrific effect. Clunky acting and writing of Nan's brother and boyfriend occasionally bring things down to the accidentally comical, but not so much as to fatally flaw the film. A final confrontation between Good and Evil in a fog-shrouded graveyard starts as a marvel of mood and ends only a couple of steps short of Evil Dead-style monster-fighting. Recommended.