REVIEW: Curse of the Undead - Universal Monsters Goes Full Cowboy

Curse of the Undead: Universal Monsters Goes Full Cowboy and I’m Weirdly Into It

1959's Curse of the Undead is one of those movies you throw on expecting absolutely nothing... and then suddenly you’re like, “Hold on… why is this actually kind of great??” It’s late-50s Universal, it’s low-budget, it’s campy, it’s got cowboys shooting at vampires and literally none of it should work… but somehow? It totally does.

Curse of the Undead follows a vampire cowboy that drifts into a town and sets his sights on a beautiful rancher. It is the first movie to mix the western and horror genres and it does it with glee. Is it a Universal Monsters classic? No. In fact, it's technically not even a Universal Monster movie. Is it Citizen Kane with fangs? Absolutely not. Is it a shockingly fun mash-up of horror and western that feels like someone said, “What if Dracula rode into town with a smolder and a six-shooter?” Yes. And bless it for that.

This is peak B-movie genre chaos. It's the kind of film that reminds you Universal in the 1950s was basically throwing darts at a board labeled “Things That Could Kill People,” and one day someone accidentally hit “vampire gunslinger” and greenlit it immediately.

And honestly? God bless 'em. Because we ended up with a dusty little slice of horror-western nonsense that is genuinely enjoyable, even when it’s stumbling over its own premise.

Let’s also talk about Miss New Jersey — Kathleen Crowley herself — because she absolutely steals the movie. She’s giving elegance, she’s giving grit, she’s giving “I’m smarter than every man in this entire saloon and I know it.” She elevates the whole thing by simply existing on screen. She plays it straight in a movie that is decidedly not straight and that choice is iconic.

The whole film has that charming, cozy vibe you get from discovering something that isn’t perfect but absolutely knows what it is. You’ve got dusty towns, nighttime ambushes, a brooding vampire gunslinger who looks like he got kicked out of a rodeo for being too emo, and enough shadows to make every scene feel like Universal’s leftover gothic fog stumbled onto a Western set by accident.

Does the plot always make sense? Nope. Does that even matter? Also nope. Will I be showing my friends this movie while shouting, “No seriously, vampires but in the Old West!”? One hundred percent yes.

Curse of the Undead is a weird little gem. It's fun, atmospheric, delightfully strange and way more entertaining than it has any right to be. It’s not a hall-of-fame Universal Monster entry, but it’s the scrappy little cousin who shows up to the reunion in cowboy boots and fangs and somehow becomes the life of the party.

Miss New Jersey forever!! Vampire gunslingers forever!! And long live the Universal Monster weird era - the one where they just said, “Screw it, let’s have fun.”


Get Curse of the Undead (1959) (Blu-Ray) on Amazon here!