Horror Hotel

Director: John Moxey, John Llewellyn Moxey John Moxey

Overview

Christopher Lee stars as Driscoll, an evil professor who inspires a student (Venetia Stevenson) to investigate a coven of witches who live in an isolated New England community. Also known as The City of the Dead.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/04/2022
UPC:	0644827355426
Original Release:	1961
Source:	Reel Vault
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Language:	English
Time:	1:18:00
Sales rank:	15,299

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Betta St. John	Patricia Russell
Patricia Jessel	Elizabeth Selwyn/Mrs. Newless
Christopher Lee	Prof. Alan Driscoll
Dennis Lotis	Richard Barlow
Venetia Stevenson	Nan Barlow
Valentine Dyall	Jethrow Keane
Norman MacOwan	Rev. Russell
Ann Beach	Lottie
Tom Naylor	Bill Maitland
Fred Johnson	The Elder
James Dyrenforth	Actor
Maxine Holden	Actor
Nickolas Grace	Actor
Kenneth V. Jones	Composer
Douglas Gamley	Composer

Technical Credits

George Baxt

Desmond Dickinson

John Moxey	Director,Director
Cliff Richardson	Special Effects
Milton Subotsky	Producer
Donald Taylor	Producer
Max Rosenberg	Producer
George Baxt	Screenwriter
Desmond Dickinson	Screenwriter
Cliff John Richardson	Special Effects
Seymour S. Dorner	Producer

Editorial Reviews

The debut of director John Llewellyn Moxey (then billed only as John Moxey) is an atmospheric chiller filmed largely on studio sets with a cast that mixed veteran performers (Patricia Jessel and Christopher Lee) with young stars (the 22-year-old American Venetia Stevenson in the lead). It's a low-budget film that depends, like many of the horror films made for Britain's Hammer Studios, more on atmosphere than dazzling special effects. Released the same year as Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, it shares that film's setup, of a beautiful young woman checking into a hotel that's a front for evil doings. Stevenson's Nan Barlow is an inquisitive college student investigating a New England town which was the scene of witchcraft trials some 250 years before. The film is less interested in making sense (the town is only partly inhabited by witches, so why don't they just take over so that none of the "civilians" can tell the outside world?) than in creating a mood of foreboding. Stevenson isn't much of an actress, but Moxey gives her enough support and offers a rousing, fiery finale in a graveyard to compensate.