Grade the Dead!

[Trekker4747]

City of the Dead is another entry in the class of 1950s horror/suspense movies but I think this one doesn't quite qualify as the "B-Movie" type, though I wouldn't say it's exactly an A-Movie/Main Attraction.  It doesn't suffer from many of the problems "B-Movies" usually suffer from when it comes to acting, plot, or period effects.  It actually manages all of this fairly well.  It just sort of lacks a cast to draw people in other than perhaps Christopher Lee.

The movie centers around a college girl wanting to complete her thesis in a class that seems to center around witchcraft or some other kind of alternative beliefs/cryptotheology. In particular witchcraft. As it so happens there's a nearby town with a storied history of witchcraft including an incident that occurred a few hundred years ago where an accused witch was burned at the stake an left the citizens under a curse.

Since then it seems the same citizens have stayed alive and the town has mostly fallen off the beaten path and is seldom visited by outsiders.  Our young college stays at an inn there while doing her studies and experiences plenty of oddities between the inn-keeper, the preacher at the nearby dilapidated church and hitchhiker en-route to the town.  The young woman soon finds herself to be the victim of a yearly sacrifice the townsfolk perform in order to stay alive.

Overdue for her return, her boyfriend and brother grow concerned and investigate her disappearance.  Well, largely her boyfriend is concerned; her brother seems more annoyed that his sister has gone missing and only seems interested once a new-comer to the town -a young woman taking over a business for a recently deceased relative, whose grandfather is the preacher at the church- catches his eye and so becomes targeted by the townspeople.

Again, the movie itself is actually pretty good for this type of movie in this time period. Oh, it's worth of riffing, but it's hardly the dog many other movies from this time-period can be.

The riffing of the movie is pretty good and solid, the guys make good fun of the 1950s ways presented in the movie, some muddied accents from the characters and the sometimes mismatched score in the movie.

A pretty fun riff, though I'm usually not a fan of riffs on movies from this time period.  Bad movies back then were bad mostly from lack of experience making movies given the relative newness of medium and the idea of spending big on effects, casting, sets and so forth wasn't too much of a concept.  I'm usually much more entertained by movies made past 1970s when movie-making had become much more of an art-form making it that much more funny when it's not done right.

All the same a good, fun, riff.  Straight-B.

[rrpostal]

I totally agree about the time frame of the movies I enjoy the most.

[BlabSulkhead]

One of the best riffs ever. I've always had a soft spot for this 1960 film (not sure why people on the forum keep placing this one in the 1950s). I laughed a LOT watching it. It seemed to me that our illustrious riffers also took particular pleasure in riffing this one. All 3 of the guys were really "on." It's just a totally solid riff that struck me as having been done with a certain amount of affection.

Again, for me, City of the Dead was completely satisfying and delightfully funny, one of their best to date.