Starring: Michael Pate, Kathleen Crowley, Eric Fleming, Bruce Gordon
Director: Edward Dein
Released: 1959
Mood: If you love spooky szn but don’t actually want to be scared and you need a horror flick without the side effect of heart palpitations and nightmares.
When you find out that Curse of the Undead is the first American horror Western movie ever made, you kinda have to see it. Especially if you’re a self-declared famous Western critic, on a mission to find the best Western horror movies of all time.
When most people think ‘horror’ they think ‘scary’, and Curse of the Undead is not a scary movie – especially by modern horror standards. There’s no splatter, no gore, and no jump scares. Nothing about it will make you yell at the screen. It’s more like a moody ‘50s Western where the bad guy happens to also be a vampire, but is otherwise exactly like all other ‘50s Western bad guys.
Still, this is a surprisingly well-made film for its low budget and 18-day shoot. It’s definitely worth a watch for anyone who likes old Westerns or old horror movies.
Curse of the Undead starts off in a town where young women have started dying for no reason that the doctor can figure out.
After attending the most recent death, the doctor and his beautiful daughter, Dolores (Kathleen Crowley), learn that their neighbour has been up to no good. Buffer (Bruce Gordon) is a wealthy rancher who breaks fences and dams rivers in an attempt to drive people off their land, and he’s constantly surrounded by a posse of lackeys.
The good doctor goes into town to talk to the sheriff about the problem, and is killed on his way home. Dolores and her hot-headed brother immediately suspect Buffer, which leads to her brother goading the rancher into shooting him.
Now alone in the world, Dolores puts up signs offering a reward for putting a stop to Buffer. Enter the swarthy gunman Drake Robey (Michael Pate). But Drake is something a little bit darker than a mere contract killer, and only Preacher Dan (Eric Fleming) might be able to prevent another tragedy.
All of the acting in Curse of the Undead is actually quite good. Nobody felt weak, made me roll my eyes, or seemed miscast. And that’s pretty impressive since the story was written as a joke, a satire of the popular vampire movies of the era, and wasn’t intended to be made into a real movie. But every single actor is deeply committed to their roles.
I especially enjoy Michael Pate as the vampire, because we need more diverse vampires! He’s still technically a white guy, but Pate looked more like Bela Lugosi than the hordes of skinny goth vampires we get in more modern movies. Pate also had a deep natural tan, which is why he got cast as numerous Native characters throughout his career… although you can’t truly appreciate that he’s a tanned vampire, since it’s a black and white movie.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
On the topic of tanned vampires, The Curse of the Undead‘s writers were super inconsistent with their idea of what makes a vampire. Sometimes Drake needs to sleep in a coffin, but other times he doesn’t, and it’s also unclear where he was sleeping before coming to town, since he clearly didn’t come with a coffin.
He says light hurts his eyes, but in many scenes he walks around in broad daylight without issue. He winces at one specific cross, but walks past others without reacting. And it’s never explained why after the start of the movie he switches from only killing women to killing men.
But even with those plot holes, the cinematography is good for a B-movie. The pacing is really strong. And I didn’t mind at all that the music aggressively told me how to feel in every scene.
The premise would have been an incredibly fresh perspective in the Western-saturated ‘50s. It’s actually still a unique take on vampirism – Drake aka Drago became a vampire because he committed suicide, which was the ultimate sin and thus, he was in league with the devil.
Not a bad beginning to the sub-genre at all. I would totally watch this again.
