Welcome to the first installment of Text and Subtext. Today’s movie is Curse of the Undead, a 1959 horror-western.
Curse of the Undead is a neat little horror-western I watched this past week. The poster, as you can see, is wonderful, as is the tagline: His body is an empty shell which hides a lustful fiend!
The plot’s pretty simple: a mysterious cowboy all clothed in black rides into town, looking for work first as a gunslinger, then as a hired hand on beautiful Dolores Carter’s ranch…after her father is mysteriously killed out riding at night…drained of all his blood!
Yup.
Vampire cowboy.
It’s a great twist on the story, though, if you don’t mind some ambiguity in how Roby (the man in black) became a vampire. Untold years ago he found his gal cheating on him with his brother; he killed his brother, then, in remorse, killed himself. He comes back as a vampire, doomed with eternal life and an eternal thirst for blood.
Maybe he’s cursed to become a vampire because he committed suicide? Fratricide? Was it a kind of Cain Killed Abel curse? I loved how the movie just didn’t bother with an explanation. Roby’s a vampire, he’s in town, and his moving in on Preacher Dan’s gal, Dolores.
What you have here is a pretty tight little Western where the villain in black just happens to be a vampire. There’s little to no mystic vampire powers displayed. He can’t be killed by guns, and he drinks blood from the neck, and that’s it. We don’t even see fangs, which honestly…I thought was a nice touch.
It’s also implied he can walk around in the day time, it just hurts his eyes to do so. Also, the cross does have an effect on him, as he shies away from the shadow of the cross on the church when chasing Pastor Dan.
Michael Pate is great as Roby. There’s no vampiric posturing, and if we didn’t know any better, he could be just another cowboy wearing black. It really grounded the movie with a sense of realism. He’s also not overly found with his curse, but hey: That’s just how it is. A guy’s gotta eat, right?
Eric Flemming is also great as Preacher Dan, offering a grounded performance as a realistic, down-to-earth town preacher. And you gotta like a preacher willing to strap on some iron to defend his town and his gal.
How does Preacher Dan win in the end? I’ll leave that to you to find out. All I’ll say is the ending is just like the rest of the movie, in my opinion. Beautifully understated, but still consistent with vampire myth.
Watch Curse of the Undead on Tubi today.
Hell to the yes. Thx. Need to watch.