Every now and then, I'll discover a film by Roger Corman that legitimately surprises me with its quality. These include such low-budget "classics" as Carnival Rock (1957), A Bucket of Blood (1959), and X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963), three films that I thoroughly enjoyed. Now I can add another film to that list: The Undead. Made during one of Corman's greatest bursts of creative energy, The Undead was the fifth of nine films that he would direct and release in 1957. Like many of Corman's films, The Undead was made solely to cash in on a popular cultural trend. This time around the trend was reincarnation. It was originally going to focus on a prostitute named Diana Love who would relive one of her past lives as a "witch" in the Middle Ages via hypnosis. But when the film actually began production, Corman began to believe that the trend was dying down. So he decided to spice the plot up a bit by throwing in an element of time travel. So after Diana goes back in time, the psychic responsible for the experiment named Quintus Ratcliff realizes that if she changes past events in her flashback they will alter the course of time in real life. So Quintus also goes back in time to try and convince Diana's past life, a young woman named Helene, to allow herself to be wrongfully executed for witchcraft in order to save the future. This is a surprisingly compelling plot that more than makes up for its obvious budget limitations. And let me tell you...there were quite a few limitations. The film was shot in a "converted supermarket" in only six days. But despite all of this, the acting is solid, there's a spooky atmosphere, and a clever storyline. It's no masterpiece. But then again, Corman never set out to make them. And you know what? That's okay in my book.
6/10
No comments:
Post a Comment