The Undead is brash, gawdy and not to be taken too seriously but there are some good ideas here. Diane Love is a prostitute who agrees to be used by an unscrupulous psychic researcher named Quintus ( Val Dufour ) for regression to her past lives. She goes back to being Helene, a wrongly accused medieval maiden awaiting execution for witchcraft. There follows a rather aimless section where she and lover Pendragon ( Richard Garland ) shuttle between ugly white witch Meg Maud ( Corothy Neumann) and voluptuous sorceress Livia. Then Quintus suddenly realises Diana's will is influencing events in the past and follows her himself to make sure Helene keeps her date with the executioner. This is the first film where Satan himself is portrayed ( Richard Devon ). The presentation of the witches is a bit Wizard of Oz but there are some genuine chills at the end prompting the UK censors to withhold its certificate for a time.
Pamela Duncan ( as Diana / Helene )
Sex : Helene fakes an interest in her jailer to make her escape
Death : Helene voluntarily goes to the block to avoid disrupting the future. Diana survives
Pamela was a former beauty queen from New York. She never got out of B-movies but was busy on TV until the end of the sixties. She died of a stroke in 2005 aged 80.
Allison Hayes ( as Livia )
Sex : Livia keeps offering her amazing body to Pendragon but he doesn't take her up on it.
Death : Stabbed by Pendragon for her part in sending Helene to the block
Allison ( originally Mary Jane ) was a Miss America contestant in 1949 which helped launch her acting career. She achieved lasting fame in the title role in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman but had to settle for a mainly TV career in the sixties. In the middle of that decade her health began to suffer which was eventually put down to lead poisoning from calcium supplements she' been taking. Her condition got worse in the seventies and she died aged 46 in 1977.
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