The City of the Dead (Region B)

IN WHITEWOOD, TIME STANDS STILL

Christopher Lee was already a horror icon when he started filming The City of the Dead in 1959. Having played Frankensteins Monster, Count Dracula and The Mummy for Hammer, this new picture would allow him to extend his range to the American Gothic and witchcraft in a small New England village

Lee plays Professor Driscoll, an authority on the occult who persuades one of his students (Venetia Stevenson) to research his hometown, Whitewood, once the site of witch burnings in the 17th century. Booking herself into the Ravens Inn, she soon learns that devil worship among the locals hasnt been consigned to the past.

Produced by future Amicus founders Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg, and beautifully shot by Desmond Dickinson (whose credits ranged from Laurence Oliviers Hamlet to Horrors of the Black Museum), The City of the Dead is a wonderfully atmospheric and still shocking slice of horror that s