Reincarnation can sound pretty exhausting when you think about it. The philosophical desire for the essence of being, your soul, does not die when the body ceases to exist (bills don’t go away because you pass on through to the other side), but moves on to another existence to do it all over again. And again, and again, and again, and again… (nothing can outlive the energizer soul). However, I’m not sure I want to do it all over again, only this time I am a dung beetle (I dealt with enough crap in this life, let online more). But then I have to think I could come back as something so horrendous, so hideous, so humiliating, to suffer a moment’s thought of what a life it could be makes me want to switch philosophies and ideals in a heartbeat – a film critic! Although sitting in a dingy movie theatre to review crappy movies is what I do now, I am not sure it’s something I would want to do over, and over, and over again. Unless they happen to be Roger Corman movies, because whether it’s a Corman movie filled to the brim with life or one of his classics that were dead on arrival (Roger D.O.E.man), they are always something to find upon each viewing. This especially comes true in his 1958 thriller-chiller (that reduces to die, even at the box office), The Undead, Corman’s dark exploration into the themes of reincarnation, hypnotization, and (for most of the paying audience) irritation!
Never one to pass up the opportunity to exploit others’ efforts, Corman was keen to make a movie based on the huge success of one of the first books on reincarnation, The Search for Bridey Murphy by Morey Bernstein. Bernstein, a businessman by day and a somewhat amateur hypnotist by night, felt he needed to hypnotize a housewife one day, only to discover deep in her hypnosis that her soul lived in the early 1800s as an Irish woman. This book became a controversial juggernaut, opening the floodgates for debates by scholars that continue to this day (which, if true, their future reincarnated selves will and should laugh at the irony). Seeing the opportunity to dig up a few bucks, Corman turned to Charles Griffith (his lucky scribe on projects such as A Bucket of Blood and Creature from the Haunted Sea) to write a story surrounding these ideas. What surprised everybody was not the idea of Corman exploiting this new movement, but the fact that Griffith, knowing Paramount was making a movie about it, felt Corman would rush so fast that Corman’s version would come out before their film and lose a lot of money! Regardless, the need to hush and just rock ‘n’ rush was at the forefront of this current incarnation of their cinematic brains, and after securing around seventy thousand dollars from his Film Group company, Corman and the gang achieved the dream, making an entire new film in ten days by converting a closed supermarket grocery store into the foggy moors of ancient eighteenth-century Ireland! Maybe in Corman’s previous lives, he was a peregrine falcon, or a squirrel, or a hummingbird, or a bunny who rushes to cross the finish line.
A psychic researcher is convinced reincarnation is real and wants to take his research to new heights. Now, instead of getting a bunch of college students in desperate need for beer money to volunteer, they get the brilliant idea of hiring a ‘lady of the evening’ straight off the streets (talk about cost-saving research grants). Turns out it works and is true, for she has been hypnotized to go back to eighteenth century England in the body of a woman in a similar position(s) in life (I guess she never learned all these lives later). Although this would be a great research paper, there is one small problem with her past life: she is in jail to be sacrificed as a witch! Not wanting to just come out of the hypnosis and understand that this was a person who died a long, long time ago, she feels she must save her previous life (ignoring the fact that this would mean she would not reincarnate into the next one, and the one after that, and the one after that…). Will she be able to stop others from killing an innocent woman accused of witchcraft, or will she need to make a deal with the devil (or an actor with a great goatee) to save her damnable soul(s)?
Flashing before your eyes in a lifeless seventy-five minutes, the film features many of Corman’s regulars, including a small role for (the respectfully labeled this time) Richard (Dick) Miller. Not a popular one at the time, it has grown a decent reputation over the years, thanks to the praises from Corman alumni like Joe Dante. You can find this on most streaming services, but be sure to get the MST3K Vol. XXXIV box set, which features a great documentary on American International Pictures! You are getting very sleepy… sleepy… yes, you are seeing a previous life… a life when there were no movies like these (a time, sadly, when B-movies were never a thing). A time when you didn’t get melted Milk Duds on the bottom of your shoes… Sleep and you won’t remember watching good movies and only watching sweet gems such as this… sleepy… sleeeeeeeeeeeeepyyyy…
