(imdb)THE UNDEAD-1957-After a sinister intro by The Devil (Richard Devon), a weird guy named Quintas Ratcliff (Val Dufour) returns from Tibet to confront his former teacher with his regression experiments. Quintas regresses hooker Diana (Pamela Duncan) to a past life in some medieval time when persecution of witches was trending. She finds herself a condemned witch named Elaine, locked in a dungeon awaiting execution. She escapes but is accidentally locked in a coffin (with a corpse played by Paul Blaisdell) by feeble gravedigger Smolen (Mel Welles). Meanwhile Pendragon (Richard Garland) searches for proof of Elaine's innocence. A woman named Livia (Allison Hayes) pretends to care but is really a witch with imp companion (Bobby Barty) who's after Pendragon's heart.
(Metaphorically speaking…).
After Smolen frees Elaine from the coffin she meets Maud (Dorothy Neumann), a kind of witch who hides Elaine and tells Pendragon. Maud then challenges Livia. Bruno VeSota plays a pub owner who's decapitated. When Quintas realizes he's changed the past he goes back to try and fix things up. Livia convinces Pendragon the only way to help Elaine is to make a pact with the devil but Qunitas now a knight who somehow the devil knows dissuades Pendragon from signing. But if Elaine doesn't die by dawn all her future lives will cease to be. Will she submit to the executioner's axe? And what of Quintas? Will he make it back to the present? Dick Miller appears in one scene as a leper.
This is a great low budget AIP production directed of course by Roger Corman with a lot of flair and imagination. There's some nice SFX and spooky settings. Screenwriters Charles Griffin and Mark Hanna also collaborated on Corman's best sci-fi/horror film NOT OF THIS EARTH the same year. Corman also made ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS in '57, written by Griffin and and starring Garland and Duncan.
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