Fantastic!

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

'The Undead' is weird and sometimes confusing horror thriller that mixes reincarnation with time travel. Prostitute Diana Love (Pamela Duncan) is put into hypnotic trance by psychic Quintus Ratcliff (Val Dufor) and sent back into her previous life as Helen who is about to beheaded as witch in the dark ages at the night of Witch Sabbath. The premise is exciting enough and the ridiculous dialogue is well acted like usually in Corman's movies. The sets built out of plywood and Styrofoam are seemingly fake. Even the winged creatures that real witch Livia (Allisson Hayes) and her evil Imp are changing themselves are reused from Corman's earlier film 'It Conquered the World'. That is how cheep he made his movies.While watching Roger Corman's movies, I occasionally think about the ideas used in his movies and what if he didn't need to rush his productions, but could allow to develop the screenplays and had a bigger budgets to use? Of course they might not be such an outrageous pieces of entertainment anymore as one immediately understands that all his inventiveness was direct result of small budgets. Oh well, one can dream sometimes.'The Undead' is undeservedly overlooked and even forgotten horror film that again is rather interesting compared to other such productions from that era.Again, I have to admit the world(cinema) would be much poorer without Roger Corman and his company of writers/actors.

The story is silly. We must all agree to that. But the acting, cinematography, music, editing are all professional. This makes this movie very watchable. Some decent effects. The dialogue along with the story is silly.This is a 1957 B/W production. When viewed in light of the period made, the low budget, high professional production, and silly story, it makes for a fun movie. No gore to be seen. But some decent twists. Helens choice at the end was commendable. And Quintes getting stuck in the past is also a good twist, he can't get back to the present because the live link of Helens death.Rating is a C, or 5 stars. Roger Corman does it again.

Roger Corman directed this strange mix of science and the supernatural, a thriller about two scientists studying psychic phenomenon who enlist the help of a woman(played by Pamela Duncan) to regress her into a past life. They succeed, and she finds herself in medieval times where she is a condemned witch. She changes her fate, which alters the future, so one of the hypnotists regresses himself back there as well,using her as a host(or something like that.) Meanwhile, a witch(played by Allison Hayes) tries to kill her as well. Can she avoid being beheaded, and save the future? Hopelessly muddled and absurd film is a cult favorite with some, but much too bizarre, confusing, and unappealing. Not on DVD yet, but was seen on YouTube at one time.

This film is one of a long line of science fiction films with a great plot, good dialouge, gorgeous actor/actresses and crappy execution. I first saw it on the eighth season of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and as a fan of the show I am very familiar with Roger Corman and his reputation. But even a broken clock can be right twice a day, and one of those moments was with The Undead.I don't know where he got the script, but it is a solid piece of science fiction. Don't let the witches and knights fool you, this is no fantasy film--the primary theme is one of time travel and its ramifications, as well as the hubris of man to toy with such powers. The climax is masterfully written and the cast is competent enough to pull it off so long as you're not distracted by the wonderful Allison Hayes'...ah...considerable acting talent. Two talents, as the case may be. Nevertheless, she performs her role admirably, as does most of the cast, and by the time the climax roles around the tension has been built with a practiced hand finally able to use tools worthy of the job. The joy at being able to do so is plainly evident in the last half hour of the film. I would give it a higher rating were it not for the poor production value and the fact that it was evidently just another movie-of-the-week for Corman, who should have realized it was worth just a little bit more effort. Regardless, he managed to pull together a solid film with a heartbreaking and moving theme with actors capable of handling the busy dialouge. This film gets a short shrift but it deserves much more recognition. Allison Hayes steals the show up to the brilliant climax. There's a reason Leonard Maltin gave The Undead three out of four stars, and you'll see it if you're willing to look past the production value and the MST3K crew's skewering.