morrison-dylan-fan With Halloween coming up,I started searching round for Horror DVDs that I could list on Ebay,and I stumbled across a title that I had picked up years ago for a £1,that was actually rather rare!,which led to me getting ready to witness the undead come to life.The plot:Wanting to explore the outskirts of the mind, psychical researchers Quintus Ratcliff & Prof. Ulbrecht Olinger hire prostitute Diana Love to be their unsuspecting test case.Pushing Olinger's doubts aside,Ratcliff begins to help Love to remember her past.Looking beyond her current location,Love discovers that she is a reincarnation of Helene,whose spirit has not been able to fade due to Helene wrongly getting killed for being a "witch."Feeling an intense connection to her past life,physical features on Helene start to appear on Love.With Love having built s strong bridge to her past,Ratcliff decides that he must get his brainwave to cross over with Love's,so that he can finally put a stop to Helene/Love's cycle of pain.Crossing over to Love's past life,Ratcliff soon discovers that a real witch has her own spell for him.View on the film:Casting the film in a gloomy Gothic Horror backdrop,the screenplay by Charles B. Griffith & Mark Hanna cuts deep into the chills with a delicious comedic relish,as the grave digger sings folk songs that are given a nasty twist,and an imp/dwarf dashes across the screen in order to do his masters bidding.Whilst they dip the movie into pretty funny comedy waters,Griffith and Hanna make sure that the Gothic Horror backbone stays strong,with the search for Love's past digging up memories that should remain hidden. Diving into Love's mind,the writers end the exploration on a wonderfully cynical,down- beat note.Perfectly capturing the atmosphere of the screenplay,director Roger Corman and cinematographer William A. Sickner take the movie down some charmingly bonkers avenues,which goes from the main witch reappearing/disappearing as if she was in a TV Comedy show from that era,to some stunning girls performing a graveyard dance.Filmed in 6 days at a disused supermarket,Corman matches the titles sweet sense of humour with a stylish Gothic Horror edge,as the soaked in shadows,burnt out villages perfectly reflect the fragmented mind of Love.Moving across minds, Val Dufour gives a very good performance as Ratcliff,who Dufour makes to look really puffed-up at the beginning,but to slowly reveal a warm sense of sincerity towards Love. Lighting up the screen like bolts of lightning each time they appear,the ravishing Allison Hayes & Pamela Duncan each give eye- catching performances,with Hayes delivering each of boo-hiss witch Livia's whip-smart one- liners with a real curl of the lips,whilst Duncan gives Love a fragile sense of fear,as the undead arise.

FrankAlamia This film is one of the scariest horror films I've ever seen. Watch it at midnight, alone in the dark. The horror is not like the cheap theatrics of "Scary Movie" but is deeply psychological. The reincarnation theme is sophisticated for its time and the Devil is down right creepy.How this movie got such a low rating here is beyond me, but anyone wishing for a truly excellent taste of 1957 horror, this movie is for you.This movie was also featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 during its 8th season, but watch the film first before you venture into the comic commentary of MST3000.

bensonmum2 Through hypnosis, a woman is able to visit a previous life where she is to be put to death for being a witch – a charge of which she is innocent. But if she is able to change her fate and avoid the executioner's ax, what will that mean for her future? How will changing history affect the present?Come on people! While The Undead does present a few interesting ideas and a couple of entertaining moments, it's not worthy of the praise it has received in many of the reviews on IMDb. I started to think that maybe all these people watched a different movie. The Undead is a low-budget Roger Corman quickie that's just not very good regardless of what Leonard Maltin thinks. I just don't get it. When one of the most positive aspects of the film I can think of is the fit of Allison Hayes' outfits, you can get a good idea of my thoughts on the movie. My 4/10 is incredibly generous.

tedg Sure this is cheap, and sure the whole enterprise hangs on two pairs of costumed breasts. The devil. Time travel through hypnosis. Some very puzzling and complex causal mechanics, if you actually pay attention.Corman tries to make sense, which is why In these sorts of things I always prefer Franco.A woman is hypnotized and sent back in time. Ancient witchcraft intermingles with modern witchcraft, both represented by sexually open women. Two men "observe" and one goes back in time as well. The devil himself gets involved.There's lots of interesting stuff here if you are a watcher — a few things about us as watchers both being in the thing watched and twisting the mechanics of what happens. Its a noir thing, that notion of the world bending to be interesting for the viewer and harming people in that world.So you may find it mildly interesting. But really, if you are at all interested in this you'd do better with Jess Franco.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.