Alex K
The fact that this film was once considered lost is truly heartbreaking to me. Independently produced by the Halperin Brothers, directed by Victor Halperin, this little chiller deserves to stand out as a landmark in the genre. Widely believe and acknowledged as the first film to label its antagonists Zombies. However they aren't the Zombies we associate with now in works such as The Walking Dead and The Last of Us, these Zombies are associated with Voodooism. The practice of rendering a person a walking corpse completely in the control of one person is quite a frightening concept even today and while the film itself doesn't fully realize all the inherent darkness of such a concept I think that they hint around at it enough to make the idea of it quite chilling. The story is simple a rich man in love with another woman requests of the help of the sinister Murder Legendre, played with excellently charming villainy by Bela Lugosi, to make the woman he loves fall in love with him. However Legendre's plan is to turn her into basically a soulless automaton. What follows is her husband attempting to rescue and revive her. The story is very bare bones and the acting by the supporting players is strictly bland, an in some cases amateurish but what saves this film is in part Lugosi delivering a chilling and nasty performance and the direction by Halperin. The film looks great, is filled to the brim with mysterious and sinister atmosphere. It also features a lot of inventive camera tricks including some early split screen. The realization of this film I don't think gets enough credit, it oozes with creativity and imagination and despite some stunted acting is still effective and entertaining. It also succeeds as a mood piece capturing a palpable sense of dread. It's not to be missed.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/06/25
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Audience Member
Considered to be the first zombie feature film, the movie is slow moving and creaky by today's standards but its a must watch for film buffs in general and horror fans specifically. It suffers from mostly wooden acting (except Bela Legosi who is mesmerizing as the Zombie Master and slow pacing. On the other hand, it still looks pretty good (not bad for a film nearly a century old). Worth at least one watch.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
11/12/24
Full Review
Justin T
I know this is an old film but It has such poor definition it is really quite hard to watch. It looks totally soft the whole time. Contrast is poor with almost no mid-range. Some of the locations would have looked pretty cool if I could have seen them! Sorry but this is hard to look at, some films from this time look great so it could have looked good. The sound quality is also dreadful. Very hard to make out what they are saying. There is massive hiss all over everything. I really wanted to enjoy this film but the technical limitations make it so hard to enjoy. I think that it was quite a good idea to raise the dead to work in a mine. It seems like a good plan, you know, for efficient use of resources. This could do with a remake, the 2014 ‘remake’ doesn’t count as that looks dreadful.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
10/01/24
Full Review
Monsol E
A bit of a slow watch, even for early horror standards, but still fun.
The story is imaginative, " *kill* the girl who's about to be married to another man, and the bring her back for yourself! Creepy and clever. The take on zombies is more like hypnosis than what we have today, which is also neat. The sets are beautiful, and Lugosi chews the camera with his stares...I also liked the old doctor, and his frequent "do you have a match?".
It has a surprisingly silly "power of love" ending, that wrecks the creepy tone, but is kinda cute.
This has a lot going for it, but feels much longer than it actually is.
If you're a vintage horror fan, you''ll probably like this, but I don't know if it will be one of your favorites.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
10/12/23
Full Review
Matthew B
White Zombie occupies a curious position in movie history. In some respects it might be said to be a reactionary movie. The Halperin brothers were obliged to work in the new medium of talkies, and made some good use of sound here. A sense of horror is created by the eerie background music, and the unnerving croaks and screams that emanate from a vulture.
However, the Halperin's style clearly hearkens back to the days of silent movies. It focuses on achieving effects through visual storytelling, Expressionist images and stylised acting. Most of the cast began their careers in silent movies, and this showed in the stilted manner in which they delivered their lines.
Whilst the style of the movie may be backward-looking, this is regarded as the first zombie feature film, and the content helped to set the template for future zombie movies for many years to come. The story is set in the West Indies, and we hear the background noise of voodoo drums. The dead are brought back to life by black magic, and forced to perform tasks of manual labour. The zombies have a sickly pallor, unseeing eyes and a clumsy shambling gait. They show no flicker of interest or amusement in life, and move around in a trance. They are impervious to injuries such as bullet wounds.
While there would be a respectable number of zombie movies to follow, this particular sub-genre of horror did not capture the imagination for many years, and produced few classics. There were limits to what moviemakers could do with slave-like undead creatures. The need for a West Indies setting further limited the possibilities.
Such movies also could be seen as racist. They associated black people with superstition and voodoo, and usually relegated black actors in the movies to supporting roles. In fact virtually all of the Haitians in White Zombie are white. The exception is the rolling-eyed, easily-scared coach driver, and he hardly serves to challenge the stereotype.
It is intriguing that ‘Murder' Legendre's zombies are slave labourers, and it seems likely that the men who work for Beaumont are the descendants of former slaves who were brought to Haiti to work on the plantations. Legendre seems to be almost seeking to re-establish slavery, but with the ideal workforce – unquestioning, untiring and uncomplaining automatons.
The scenes of the zombies working in Legendre's sugar mill is hypnotic – expressionless faces on men bent double as they carry out their work, indifferent to their surroundings, not even noticing when one of their number falls from a height. Legendre joking tells Beaumont: "They work faithfully; they are not worried about long hours. You could make good use of men like mine on your plantation?"
The story is dominated by "Murder" Legendre, the evil and powerful voodoo sorcerer (Bela Lugosi). Earlier in the film we see a close-up image of Lugosi's menacing eyes superimposed over the landscape. The eyes are lit up against a dark background, and the image makes him look seemingly omnipotent and omniscient in his powers. This is a hauntingly famous image that was imitated by Francis Ford Coppola in his adaptation of Dracula.
White Zombie was filmed in 11 days on a low budget. It was shot in a Universal Studios back lot, using leftover props and scenery from other horror movies. The capabilities of camerawork were limited in the early 1930s, and this was complicated by the fact that the movie could only be filmed at night. Curiously these limitations strengthened the movie. The gloomy cinematography adds a sense of brooding menace, and the sparse sets lend a dreamlike quality to some scenes.
In one scene the newly-widowed Parker is in a bar getting drunk when he sees a ghostly vision of Madeleine in his thoughts. The bar is captured in a close-up by nothing more than a curtain with the shadow of a table and chair behind it, yet the very bareness of the room makes the scene more intense and concentrated.
Whatever its technical flaws, White Zombie is one of the best of the old-school zombie movies. It may not have the professional ease and range of Universal's more famous horror flicks, but the Halperins created an atmospheric and original film that made full use of spellbinding imagery, and the power of suggestion.
I wrote a longer appreciation of White Zombie on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2017/10/28/white-zombie/
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
09/28/23
Full Review
Lucas C
White Zombie is a fantastic film. Bela Lugosi is great as Murder.
its a underrated classic and I highly recommend this movie!
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
10/12/24
Full Review
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