Horror 2025 Countdown: Curse of the Undead (1959)

 Curse of the Undead (1959), dir. Edward Dein, Universal-International Pictures 

At this point, the chairs were put up and the floors swept but the chiefs managed to wipe up one more surprise.

Dr. Carter (John Hoyt) is having a problem. A strange wasting illness has struck his little town out in the west. It is unusual as the victims are all young women. He and local priest Dan Young (Eric Fleming) are both baffled. The latest victim seems to be on the mend, but as the two men step out of her room to chat, the young lady dies screaming, two pinpricks on her neck.

Dejected, the doc returns back to his homestead where more problems await. His neighbor Buffer (Bruce Gordon) is a cattleman so that means he needs land and scores of it. He figures the Carter property would be a nice addition but for some crazy reason the doctor and his two kids don't want to give up their home. 

Son Tim (Jimmy Murphy) and daughter Dolores (Kathleen Crowley) are having trouble with Buffer as well. Tim caught some of Buffer's men building a dam on their property. He also gets beaten up for that. The doc figures this is enough and rides off into town to get the sheriff (Ed Binns). He never returns home, at least not alive. 

This is enough for Tim, who heads to the local saloon to get his drink on and wait for Buffer. He's pretty well drunk when the cattleman strolls in and despite the sheriff's best efforts, Tim draws down on Buffer but the sober man wins and easily walks away claiming self-defense. 

This is the last straw for Dolores, who puts up posters offered a hundred dollar reward for Buffer's death. A man in black, who's been seen around a bit the edges of the film at this point, introduces himself as Drake Robey (Michael Pate). He's clearly a seasoned gunfighter and easily outshoots Buffer's men, despite the men arguing they not only shot first, they shot him full in the chest.

Dan, meanwhile, finds some interesting papers in the late doctor's strongbox. Seems the Carter homestead was built over the estate of the Robles family. The oldest son, Drago, murdered his younger brother after finding his wife in the other man's bed. He then compounded the grief by killing himself. Afterwards, the village was stricken by the same wasting illness that currently plagues them. 

Dan tries to point this out, but all this succeeds in doing is driving Dolores further into the arms of Robey, who seems awfully familiar with the Carter property and the exact layout of everything...

Wonderful and it refuses to be bound by the rules of either horror or the Wild West. You wouldn't expect any more convention defying in 1959, yet here we are. Robey is a vampire but there's no Lugosi cliches or any overt signs of the supernatural yet Pate manages to play him as a something else, especially in any signs of gunplay.