City of the Dead (1960)

The City of the Dead opens with a young college student named Nan making the sudden decision to cancel her upcoming vacation on a whim and travel to a remote village that is supposedly cursed, all out of a desire to write a better thesis on witchcraft. Hey, come on: be gentle. It was the sixties after all. In an early flashback, we see a witch being burned at the stake by locals of said village, who, with her dying breath, calls upon Satan to make her immortal that she might torment those that executed her, and their offspring, for generations to come. So when our naive heroine arrives to find the town seemingly deserted, all besides an innkeeper who resembles quite unmistakably said witch, looking not a day older and no worse for wear, she has no reason to suspect anything, but we instantly know something isn't right and thus the tension begins to build.

I'll say it right now, the best and only part of this film I really liked was the first half-hour or so, right up until the first major twist. Like Hitchcock's Psycho, released the same year, the plot structure is unconventional and is tailor-made for maximum surprise and above all, suspense, and its setting is creepy and mysterious. In Psycho, however, we didn't know at first what to be afraid of; here we know from the beginning that the villain is indeed a devotee of the devil and that those around her are in danger, but they never realize this until it's too late. While this kind of dramatic irony can be engaging when done well, and is one of Hitchcock's major strengths, here it just manages to make things a little boring after a while, especially when one realizes that not much of anything grand or interesting has happened since the end of the first act, and we've been spinning wheels ever since. 

The biggest problem might well be the film's cast of characters. Right from the beginning, we get Christopher Lee doing a fine job as a professor of the occult and a true believer in black magic (and a suspicious guy who gives Nan the address to the mysterious town that appears on no map) and Nan, a serviceably upbeat youth that, despite her naivete, is easy to root for. That's why it's so bad when the plot gets radically shifted around after the first third of the film, and we spend the rest of the film following several duds around until the film ends. No personality, no brains, and yet easily able to defeat evil despite the fact that they act like horny morons with no sense of self-preservation; and this when the two most relatable and least irritating characters are brutally murdered by the villains, swiftly and with no dignity at all. The aging lead 'hero' must have plot armor on so thick that it could stop a truck.

Moody visuals and music, some okay performances, and a willingness to kill off characters and plot lines in the interest of surprising and disturbing audiences almost save this film from being completely forgettable, but alas, it really feels like a cheaper, clumsier, witchier take of Psycho, and if it hadn't of came out the same year I would accuse it of flat-out ripping off that film. Still, fans of vintage horror films and b-movies will probably enjoy it if they don't go in expecting much, but that's hardly a stellar recommendation.