Recensioni degli utenti

Whilst no one could lay claim to this film being a classic, it is unusual and entertaining enough to warrant viewing, and deserves credit for being different to the norm. Obviously shot on a very limited budget, it is nevertheless smartly scripted, and has a dark and brooding atmosphere which is helped enormously by the black and white photography. Whilst some of the acting is not exactly top-drawer, the film benefits greatly from an excellent performance by Michael Pate, whose menacing presence as the vampire, Drake Robey, still manages to elicit a certain degree of sympathy with the character's plight. It would also be unfair to overlook Eric Fleming's earnest portrayal of the brave preacher. He brings the correct degree of upright integrity to the character, and the film is certainly better for having these two actors in tow. This rarely seen film is worth catching, and is very much novel of its kind.

This one came as a surprise to me - it's actually fairly interesting to watch. It's a neat idea: a vampire in the old west. Why not - vampires can pop up any place in any century. This one made for a fun afternoon film to watch.

We have a gun-slinging vampire taking over a small town. It is up to the preacher and Dolores Carter to save the town from people dying mysteriously of blood-loss and to deal with the stranger in town.

This is not the finest vampire film on the market but it is a fun one - something different than normal. I enjoyed this one.

6/10

This western is one of the strangest in movie history and its weirdness is only surpassed by the infamous "Terror of Tiny Town"-- the first (and only) all-midget western! After all, this is a western about...VAMPIRES!!!

When the film begins, there is the usual sort of plot--a local baddie is trying to take control of surrounding ranches. However, what you come to realize is that that potential range war is actually being orchestrated by a third party. Drake Robey is in actuality a vampire and is using his vampirey skills to create chaos. However, along the way he finds himself falling for a local hottie. The only thing standing between her is the local preacher...the only one who has learned Robey's dark secret.

This is just one strange mash-up--vampires AND cowboys! Strange...but also reasonably interesting and worth seeing despite a few actors who aren't exactly talented. See this one...just to see one of the most unique films to come out of Hollywood.

The combining of westerns with horror has not always made for great films. I mean, who can forget "Billy the Kid vs. Dracula" and "Jesse James meets Frankenstein's Daughter". The exception is "Curse of the Undead". This 1959 picture stars Eric Fleming as a frontier preacher who is confronted with a vampire in the form of a hired gun, portrayed with sinister, yet sympathetic overtones by Michael Pate.

The plot has some holes in it. For example, Michael Pate's character commits suicide after murdering his brother, which in turn condemns him for all eternity as a vampire...I mean, I have never heard of this premise for a person becoming one of the "undead". Also, the vampire of this movie can walk around in the daylight with seemingly no ill effects, and everyone knows that vampires absolutely cannot be exposed to sunlight, or they will be destroyed.

Despite these minor flaws, the movie actually has a good story and some good acting by Fleming as the preacher, Pate as the vampire/gunslinger, and Kathleen Crowley as the love interest caught between the two. I highly recommend this movie.

CURSE OF THE UNDEAD is a vampire western, complete with victims drained of blood and plenty of atmospheric woo-woo music. It's sort of like watching a typical TV western from the period, with the vampire elements added for fun. Does it work? Well, yes.

It's obvious who the bloodsucker is early on, since he sits on his horse mysteriously, and said horse moves in slow-motion. He's a gunslinger named Drake Robey (Michael Pate), who just happens to sleep in a coffin. When local woman Dolores Carter (Kathleen Crowley) offers a reward for the death of whomever murdered her father, Robey shows up, in spite of the fact that dad had a few familiar holes in his neck. Once in town, Robey runs afoul of the local preacher (Eric Fleming), setting up a true good vs. eeevil showdown.

This movie has a nice backstory, explaining Robey's accursed origin. Though there have been other such "crossover" films, this is certainly one of the best...

Pate would have made a good Dracula. He has all the sexualness about him. The Preacher Man annoyed me beyond tolerance and the chick i could have done without too. I didn't finish the movie. I saw Dekker (Bruce Gordon) die and i knew Pate would die and the chick would go with Preacher Man instead of how it should be. She go with him. But yes Pate pulled off the vampire move, shame he didn't do more.

Glad I found this. A vampire western, might possibly be the first ever of it's kind. A pretty run of the mill Western story-line with a bloodsucking demon added for good measure. The acting and script are nothing great but enough to keep you amused. For lovers of horror, this really is a must see.

I was just a kid when I saw this so, my memory could be shading my judgment. However, after viewing some of the "Highlander" TV series, this western is along the lines of a tale told in flashback about an immortal who lived through the time of the old west. In the case of this film, the immortal happens to be a vampire. What a great gig for a vampire--be THE best gunslinger in the west. Even if you are a slow draw, you can never lose.

I also was impressed with the use of a preacher as the protagonist. I remember a very positive portrayal. I haven't too much a memory about the acting, though. A good gage would be to conjure up memories of the lead actor when he played Gil Favor the trail boss on TV's "Rawhide."

I've always liked this movie: it takes a theme that could easily have been preposterous (a vampire Western?) and handles it with restraint, dignity, a nice feel for its two respective folklores, and deep, handsome B&W photography. It's an easy step from natural to supernatural for that classic Western icon, the mysterious, black-clad gunslinger who rides into town by night, and the rest of the movie is just as comfortable a blend. The laconic vampire, Drake Robey ("The dead don't bother me, ma'am, it's the living that give me trouble") is a noble monster who first preys on, then falls for the feisty rancher heroine, and there's a neat iconic scene involving a bullet mounted with Preacher Dan's precious fragment of the True Cross. Really a classy little movie and most unfairly overlooked - I can't believe this is the first comment on it!

Cowboys and vampires do not mix. I'm sorry, I like my vampires in Eastern European countries with swamps, bats, perpetual darkness, and lots of fog.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Edward Dein; Produced by Joseph Gershenson for Universal-International Pictures release. Screenplay by Edward and Mildred Dein; Photography by Ellis Carter; Edited by George Gittens; Music by Irving Gertz. Starring: Eric Fleming, Michael Pate, Kathleen Crowley, Edward Binns, John Hoyt, Bruce Gordon and Jimmy Murphy.

The first combo Western-horror film, in which a vampire, dressed in black, terrorizes the West in the guise of a gunfighter and is faced-down by an iron-willed man of the cloth. Transference of the vampire legend is well-done and Pate is exceptionally good as the fast-draw Drac.

This is the first vampire western in cinema and surprisingly it's better than I was expecting. Far from a masterpiece, but also far from a joke, and with a very good atmosphere, music and mood. The story is a quite convoluted and we are in Universal Pictures 50's B-Territory, but it will make for a great Halloween midnight session at any moment and even has some very clever ideas spread throughoutout.

Trying to resolve matters in a land-border dispute, a family's hiring of a strange gunslinger eventually causes them to realize he's the culprit behind a series of ghastly murders around town by draining women of blood and race to stop him before he completes his task.

This is an overall curious and quite enjoyable effort. Basically this here turns out to be a cunning combination of Western and vampire horror, but for once the mixture is not a detriment to the other as they usually result in forsaking one part of the story for the other if the two chosen topics really have little in common with each other. Here, we get a typical Western about a ranch family involved in a border dispute with their neighbors who resorts to underhanded tactics to keep his side of the property without repercussions, involved in numerous shady deals with the authorities to keep himself in line and offers up plenty of shoot-outs, beatings and scenes of everyone wandering around on horse- back to fulfill that part of the storyline, and basically turns the script around by having the loner coming in to deal with the situation being a vampire. By still incorporating those tactics, where he resides in coffins, can't stay out in the sunlight for long periods of time and resorts to blood-drinking to carry out his orders all fall in line with known vampire lore, as well as the defense tactics used to stop his rampage that carries out on the outskirts of the story before being brought in by the land dispute where everything finally makes sense. The only real problems here is the last half, where the vampire far more often than necessary taunts the hero with long-winded speeches about humanity and faith of God, which really hurts his effectiveness as a villain since it all comes off so lame and stupid. Overall, though, it more than makes up for that one little flaw.

Today's Rating/PG: Violence.

This is even worse than one might think. It's a silly premise, the mixing of Western and vampire, and it could have worked with a better idea.

However, Edward Dein, director of this movie, also writer, is heavy handed with a Nazi idealism, the Hitler ideal of the blond woman surviving in Nature, while all the dark haired damsels are destroyed. He shows this heavy handed hatred in THE LEECH WOMAN, where he contrives the story to purposely kill the innocent brunette for no apparent reason, except to satisfy his Hitler worship. It's impossible to ignore, because he hits us with a hammer over the head with it.

It's sad, too, because many of the most charismatic actors signed on in this movie, and probably had no idea they were engaged in this sort of propaganda. Rawhide's Eric Fleming, Frank Nitti actor Bruce Gordon, and the evil henchman of THE BLACK CASTLE, Michael Pate obviously saw this as a stepping stone to greater things, with big roles, and their acting was superb, as were all the actors, but the script was just so heavy handed with this contrived Nazi ideology, that there just wasn't anything else communicated.

Annoying and dull scripts and directing cannot be saved by great acting.

I caught this boring film on late night TV many many years ago. The plot sounded interesting so I tuned in. Boy, was that a mistake! I hate Westerns but I love horror movies--I though this would concentrate on both genres. WRONG! It's a low-budget Western all the way with a few mild vampire touches thrown in. The only mildly horrific scene was when the vampire was shown in his coffin...but that's it. No blood, no fangs and a vampire that can walk around in daylight! Also very VERY dull. The acting was actually very good--that's what kept me watching.

So, if you like odd Westerns this is for you. If you're a horror movie fan, stay away. (Unless you like boring horror films)

1959's "Curse of the Undead" was the penultimate horror film before Universal's 'B' unit shut down permanently (completed prior to its Hammer cofeature "The Mummy"), the studio sold to MCA (Music Corporation of America) just before getting underway, a takeover finally completed by 1962. Music supervisor Joseph Gershenson was allowed to produce the final trio, this one between Jack Arnold's "Monster on the Campus" and Edward Dein's "The Leech Woman," Dein and wife Mildred coming up with the concept of a vampire in the Old West, working titles "Affairs of a Vampire" and "Mark of the West." Dein churned out the screenplays for "Calling Dr. Death," "Jungle Woman," and "The Cat Creeps" the previous decade, but as a director fails to generate much atmosphere on an 18 day schedule, fortunately avoiding its original satirical bent for a serious approach using the Old World legend of sinning against God to bring down the curse of eternal suffering. A series of deaths afflicting young girls plague a small Western town of the 1880s, Dr. Carter (John Hoyt) bowing to the healing power of Preacher Dan (top billed Eric Fleming) when his medicine offers no solution. The Carter ranch adjoins that of land grabbing Buffer (Bruce Gordon), eager to intimidate them so he can become indisputable owner of their property. After requesting aid from the sheriff (Edward Binns) Carter returns from town already dead, bleeding with two puncture marks in the throat that go unexplained. It's not long before hot headed Tim Carter (Jimmy Murphy) requires several drinks to draw on an unrepentant Buffer, who shoots the boy in self defense. All these events take place under the watchful eye of black clad gunslinger Drake Robey (Michael Pate), only now entering the fray to make his appeal to grieving Dolores Carter (Kathleen Crowley), partly to secure a position as hired hand to repel Buffer's unscrupulous presence, partly to assuage his existence as a creature of the night, secretly residing in her father's mausoleum coffin. Preacher Dan learns the truth about Robey in a Spanish land grant among Carter's papers, the former Don Diego Robles committing fratricide against his own brother in the embrace of his newlywed bride before committing suicide in the year 1859, still roaming his own land by his own rules as a vampire in need of human blood to prolong an existence in league with the devil. Once Carter, his son, the inquisitive sheriff, and finally Buffer himself are dispatched, Robey must now remove the preacher as the final obstacle between him and Dolores, always keeping in the shadows but still fearful of the cross that reminds him of his blasphemy. A reliable veteran of both Westerns ("Hondo") and horror ("The Strange Door," "The Black Castle," "The Maze"), second billed Michael Pate was the perfect choice for Robey, ably outshining the stolid, unappealing Fleming in one verbal sparring match after another, his reputation as a bounty hunter enhanced by the fact that ordinary bullets cannot harm him. Certainly more could have been made of this fascinating idea, still light years better than the embarrassing approach of John Carradine's "Billy the Kid Versus Dracula."