The City of the Dead

"The City of the Dead" or "Horror Hotel" (English: "The City of the Dead" or "Horror Hotel") – English (but filmed in the USA) a 1960 horror film. The film is in the public domain in the USA.

In 1692, in the town of Whitewood in New England, residents were going to burn a witch named Elizabeth Selwyn. However, before her death, she managed to make a deal with the devil: he gave her eternal life in exchange for a promise to do only evil forever.

Our days (mid-XX century). Professor Alan Driscoll is giving a lecture on medieval witches at a US university. One of his students, Nan Barlow, is particularly interested in this issue, and the professor advises her to visit the town of Whitewood, where you can find a lot of interesting things on this topic. Nan goes there on vacation. Having settled in a hotel with a very eccentric hostess, Mrs. Newless, Nan begins to study the history of the town. She meets a local resident, Patricia, and soon learns that the next day, in a numerous centuries-old series, the rite of sacrifice will take place. The victim will be a certain girl. Going down to the basement of the hotel, the girl dies.

Two weeks later, worried about the lack of news from Nan, her brother Richard and her young man Tom go in search of the girl. Having overcome the machinations of witches along the way, the friends arrive in Whitewood. Here they find Patricia and meet her father, a local priest. Soon Patricia is kidnapped, and Richard finds her in the very basement where Nan died; the girl has already been prepared for the sacrifice. To his considerable surprise, Richard finds out that the leader of the sect is Professor Driscoll himself, who sent Nan here. Richard tries to free the girl, they run out to the cemetery together, but there they are grabbed by representatives of the cult and are going to be sacrificed. At the last minute, Tom appears in the cemetery, who destroys the witches with the help of a crucifix, although he himself is stabbed in the back. The main witch manages to escape, but she can no longer live forever, since the time of sacrifice is lost. She turns out to be the innkeeper, Mrs. Newless, whose real name is Elizabeth Selwyn; Richard and Patricia find her dead after coming out of the basement.

The shadow of the cross can interfere with witches during the ritual: if you approach the witch close enough with a cross (for example, a cemetery tombstone), then she ignites.

The behavior of a ghost is similar to the actions of one of the sorcerers: he suddenly appears in the fog at the intersection of the road next to the sign and asks passing travelers to give him a ride to the city. Arriving at the place, he disappears from the car.

At the time of the burning in 1692, the witch who made a deal with Lucifer curses the small town of Whitewood. Since then, there has been a constant night and a very dense fog in this city, and the inhabitants of the city (among whom only witches remained) do not age for several hundred years.

At the time of the burning in 1692, the witch who made a deal with Lucifer curses the small town of Whitewood. Witches living in this town, men and women, twice a year (on the night of Candlemas on February 1 and on the night of the Sabbath a month later) must sacrifice a young girl to Satan. This prolongs their life for several hundred years. The rest of the residents of the town died or left during this time, with the exception of the family of the priest of the local church.

Witches perform the sacrifice in an unconsecrated part of the cemetery or in the basement of a hotel built on the site of the witch's burning. Before abducting the victim, the witch takes away her personal item (for example, a medallion), and also throws a pierced dead bird and a sprig of honeysuckle. The sacrifice must be brought at midnight on the thirteenth stroke of the clock, piercing her with a dagger, after which you need to drink all her blood.

The shadow of the cross can interfere with witches during the ritual: if you approach the witch close enough with a cross (for example, a cemetery tombstone), then she ignites.

The witch sends a vision to a traveler traveling to the city, as a result of which he loses his way in the fog and gets into a car accident.