Napoleon wrote:. For example dvdplanet have City of the Dead for $6. A release of a first rate film with a top-tier transfer & excellent extras from a tiny company.
Oh mein gott what a movie this is... and a stellar 16x9 enhanced progressive transfer (of the slightly longer and properly titled cut of the film) that the finest CC has nothing on, two commentary tracks, three modern interviews with director and two stars (one w Sir Lee), etc. Perhaps VCI's finest effort to date, and for pennies. When I first joined this site I was going on and on about this disc. I
think Bret Wood from Kino jumped companies for a few weeks and had something to do with helping to put together this disc, so obviously a huge fan. A package put together with a lot of love...
As for the film, I along with of course many others will never forget that nite in the early seventies when it was broadcast as the slightly shorter US edit called HORROR HOTEL (either Creature Feature or Chiller-- "
chillllllllllllllllllllllllllllerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"-- Theater) and the thing gave me nightmares. The ravishingly haunted deep focus photography filled with fog and deep shadows, the terrible murder of the lead halfway thru, as well as poor mute Lottie later on, that wonderful catacomb beneath the Ravens Inn, the ancient looking graveyard filled with haze and leaning tombstones, the haunting music (both the jazz as well as those terrifying gregorian-style chants of presumably satanic texts).. even the names Whitewood ("You'd think they'd do something about these roads," "few people come here anymore... for Whitewood, time stands still," "Watch out here comes another bump"... bump indeedy, darlin') Selwyn, Wormport Road, all of it. The fishbowl effect of the fireplace in the parlor when Nan first enters the inn-- fabulous work by DP Desmond Dickinson of Olivier's Hamlet, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Browning Version...
When her brother Dick is going by matchlight beneath the hotel in the cobwebbed chambers and bumps into the body of poor little Lottie (one of the most evil murders in all film, cruel... strangulation!) I damn near crapped my 5 year old pants. It is a masterpiece of horror, to this day makes my neck hairs stand up.. if witches exist, and are evil, this is the way they should look and act. Not anywhere near enough Good Witch Movies like this.
This disc gives the lie to every overpriced horror film in the market owing to "transfer" "extras", "progressive", etc. In my opinion the M&M box is truly stuck with a for-me prohibitive price tag.
