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The Undead (film)

The Undead
Theundeadposter.jpg
film poster by Albert Kallis
Directed by Roger Corman
Produced by Roger Corman
Written by Charles B. Griffith
Mark Hanna
Starring Pamela Duncan
Richard Garland
Allison Hayes
Val Dufour
Mel Welles
Richard Devon
Billy Barty
Music by Ronald Stein
Cinematography William Sickner
Edited by Frank Sullivan
Distributed by American International Pictures
Release date
  • 1957 (1957)
Running time
75 min.
Country United States
Language English
Budget $70,000

The Undead is a 1957 horror film directed by Roger Corman starring Pamela Duncan, Allison Hayes, Richard Garland and Val Dufour. The authors' original working title was The Trance of Diana Love. The film follows the story of a prostitute, Diana Love (Duncan), who is put into a hypnotic trance by psychic Quintis (Dufour), thus causing her to regress back to a previous life. Hayes later starred in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958). The film was released by American International Pictures as a double feature with Voodoo Woman.

The psychic sends a prostitute back in time to find out about her past-life experiences. She goes back as Helene, a woman from the Middle Ages who is to die at dawn under suspicion of being a witch. In an attempt to save Diana (the prostitute) and keep all of time from being distorted, Quintis (the psychic) goes back in time to convince Helene to let herself be killed. If she avoids her death, it will change history.

The Undead was inspired by an interest in reincarnation during the 1950s (as was the film The She-Creature). Notably the book The Search for Bridey Murphy by Morey Bernstein was made into a film in 1956. Charles Griffith recalls:

It was originally called “The Trance of Diana Love”. Roger said to me, “Do me a Bridey Murphy picture.” And I told him that by the time Paramount finishes theirs, ours will fail. At the time, everybody was saying that they were making a bad picture. He just said that we’d get ours done ahead of theirs and clean up. So I did “The Trance of Diana Love” and it got shot funny, especially at the end, where you see the empty clothes before the revelation. It was in iambic pentameter and I had to rewrite it after it was ready to shoot because somebody told Roger that they didn’t understand it. Roger would give it to anybody to read or anybody out on the street. He’d send girls out with scripts.


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