Now, cut to 1960. A crisp, rational autumn at Arkham University. Professor Alan Driscoll (Christopher Lee, lending velvet menace to every syllable) lectures on the persistence of witchcraft in modern folklore. His students lean forward, notebooks ready. Among them is Nan Barlow, bright-eyed, earnest, hungry for a thesis topic that will impress.
He suggests Whitewood—now a quiet, forgotten crossroads on the map—as a place where the old customs never truly died. A perfect case study. He gives Nan a letter of introduction to a certain Mrs. Newless, who runs the local inn. Nan’s boyfriend, Bill, is uneasy. Something in Driscoll’s calm advice feels like a trap door swinging open. But Nan is young and fearless in the way the young are before they learn better.
The prologue unfurls like a sermon from a fever dream. In 1692, beneath a sky the color of pewter, the Massachusetts village of Whitewood drags a woman named Elizabeth Selwyn to the stake. She is not merely accused of witchcraft—she confesses with a smile that cracks her lips. As the flames lick her petticoats, she strikes a bargain with the Devil himself. A shadow passes over the sun. The villagers flinch. And Elizabeth Selwyn swears that Whitewood will belong to her forever. The City of the Dead -1960- a.k.a. Horror Hotel...
She makes it back to the inn. Mrs. Newless brings her warm milk with honey. “To calm your nerves.”
The end credits roll over an empty highway, the signpost now reading Population 0 . Now, cut to 1960
Mrs. Newless (Patricia Jessel, with eyes like polished jet) greets her at the Raven’s Inn. “You’ll be comfortable here, dear. So few young people visit. We like… tradition.”
That night, Nan explores the churchyard. The oldest graves bear the Selwyn name. She finds a mausoleum with fresh candles—strange for a disused crypt. Inside, a hooded figure waits. Not a man. Something older. Its breath smells of earth and smoke. Nan runs, but the fog has become a living thing, winding around her ankles like a shroud. His students lean forward, notebooks ready
Nan drinks. The room softens at the edges. The ceiling becomes a sky full of embers. She hears chanting in a language that predates English. And the last thing she sees before consciousness slips is Mrs. Newless smiling—a smile identical to the one Elizabeth Selwyn wore at the stake.
But the church stands. And the mausoleum. And Professor Driscoll, who arrives the same night “to help,” wearing a clerical collar that doesn’t quite fit and a book bound in human skin.
But the fog is already creeping back.