Here’s a horror flick from the late ‘50s Universal cycle that’s sort of slipped through the cracks. It’s not very good, but it earns points for being the first vampire western. Despite the novelty, it feels less like an earnest effort to blend two different genres and more of a slapdash attempt to string together two unfinished scripts.
Drake Robey (Michael Pate) is a gunfighter in black who moseys into a quiet western town. Buffer (Bruce Gordon) is a greedy ranch owner in the midst of a land feud with a prominent family. After Buffer has the patriarch shot down, his daughter (Kathleen Crowley) hires Robey to get revenge. Only the town preacher (Eric Fleming) suspects Drake is the one responsible for the rash of murders that have left the victims with two puncture wounds on their neck.
The western sequences are rote and uninspired; full of stock characters and standard issue cliches. In fact, if it wasn’t for the vampire angle, Curse of the Undead would’ve been completely forgettable. The problem is the horror elements aren’t all that great either. The long flashback explaining the vampire’s origin is hokey and weak too. The Old West variations on the usual vampire shenanigans are OK, I guess. One thing is for sure, genre buffs will have fun spotting how and when the film rips off Dracula. Ultimately, there aren’t nearly enough of these moments sprinkled about to make it worthwhile. Still, it might be worth a look, if only as a curio.
There are a few good ideas here. The sequence where the preacher is stalked by the vampire starts off well. (He can only see the vampire’s shadow and hear his footprints.) It’s just that the execution is clunky. I did like the Invisible Man-style special effects during the film’s final minutes though.
It also doesn’t help that the cast is bland from top to bottom. Fleming makes for a square (I know he’s a preacher and all, but still), and Pate is no Bela Lugosi. I’m sure you probably already knew that, but he’s not convincing as a hardened gunslinger either. Gordon kind of looks and acts like Rodney Dangerfield when scared, which is kind of funny though.
Director Edward Dein later went on to make the much better The Leech Woman.
AKA: Mark of the West.
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