Movie Review: The City of the Dead (1960)
The City of the Dead has a lot of problems, but overall, it’s a reasonably successful atmospheric horror film. The plot bears plenty of resemblances to Psycho, with the person who we assume to be the main character going off and getting killed, and the rest of the movie revolving around people trying to find out what happened to her.
Obviously it’s not executed as well as Psycho, but how could it be? It still generates suspense, even if that suspense never leads to any legitimate shocks.
The movie follows a young student, Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson), who is inspired to visit the Massachusetts town of Whitewood in order to research a paper on witchcraft. Some weird things go on, and she’s eventually killed by a band of witches.
I think the film missed a couple opportunities with the character of Christopher Lee (Dracula), who plays Professor Alan Driscoll. When Nan is captured and taken to be sacrificed, Driscoll is revealed to be one of the witches. This reveal probably should have been saved toward the end, and the subsequent scenes should have made Driscoll out to be more sympathetic towards Nan’s disappearance. With his character as it is, it doesn’t ruin the movie, but I think these changes would have improved it.
The ending is a bit ridiculous and sort of rushed. The entire last act should be a lot slower, I think. The pacing is off. At just 76 minutes, it blows by, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I think the movie could have been much more effective were it about 15 or 20 minutes longer. I think they should have beefed up the Reverend character a bit. He’s sort of the stock “Don’t go there; that place is haunted” character, but unlike the way that character is treated in a lot of slasher movies where the character sort of just accepts urban legends he or she has heard, this character actually could offer some genuine insight.
The scenes in the crypt are very well done, using silence and darkness to let your imagination do the work. Visually, the movie is very nice. The look of Whitewood itself is unique. It’s obviously a set, but that sort of makes it more convincing as a town out of place. It has a classic, eerie definition, which is nice.
The movie is far from a classic, but it’s still worth a watch. Christopher Lee is fun as always, and this film is teeming with atmosphere.
Rating: 6/10
