Search - The Undead on DVD

Content Advisory: Suitable for Children Movie Release: 1957 Format: DVD SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Studio: Direct Video Members Wishing: 3 Genres: Mystery, Horror, Historical Film, Supernatural Horror, Psychological Thriller

Legendary shlockmeister Roger Corman and long-time collaborator Charles B. Griffith attempted to cash in on the popular 1950s surge in Bridey Murphy reincarnation mania with this confusing and throughly weird thriller. It begins with researcher Richard Garland hypnotizing streetwalker Pamela Duncan in an attempt to record her past-life experiences as a condemned witch in the Dark Ages. After numerous silly attempts by Garland to save her -- including regressing himself into the same period, where, by remarkable coincidence, he also lived as a soldier -- Duncan decides not to alter the course of history, and she resigns herself to her fate. Despite the spooky ambience, a cast of Corman regulars (including Mel Welles and Allison Hayes), and some clever plot twists -- including one which finds the tables turned on our meddling scientist -- Griffith's static and talky screenplay is so absurdly crammed with half-baked metaphysical musings that it becomes almost impossible to discern the plot. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Pamela Duncan - Diana Love
Pamela Duncan - Helene
Richard Garland - Pendragon
Allison Hayes - Livia
Val Dufour - Quintus Ratcliff
Mel Welles - Smokin

Roger Corman's The Undead was one of two American International Pictures releases to deal with past-life regression, inspired by the mid-'50s Bridey Murphy case, in which a woman was supposedly regressed into a past existence; the other was Edward L. Cahn's more literal and straightforwardly horrific The She Creature. Cahn's movie is an outright low-rent horror classic, where as The Undead has always been more problematic, set principally in medieval times dealing with witches and the devil (portrayed by Richard Devon), and most of its horrors (beheadings and so forth) taking place off-screen. The Undead has now shown up in England as a region-two disc, playable in Europe, the Middle East, and Japan, or on properly set up computers and all-region players anywhere, in what has to be its best presentation in several decades, perhaps ever. Overlooking the fact that the hearse driver Smokin (Mel Welles) uses a vehicle that is a few hundred years too modern for the medieval setting (among other anachronisms), this is probably the most energetic movie that Corman made during the first eight or nine years of his career -- the plot moves fast and the camera never lingers long anywhere. It seems as though the director was stimulated by the script (which is a little talky) and setting, and a story that was more complex than his usual production. Whatever the reasons, the disc looks very good, better than the movie did in the relatively rare broadcasts of the '70s. The eight chapters are more than adequate for the 75-minute movie, and the disc opens automatically to a simple menu that's pretty cleverly designed and includes the trailers to nine of the Arkoff-produced movies in this package. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide