White Zombie (1932)

 White Zombie (1932)

In high school one of my favourite bands was White Zombie, I have fond memories of listening to their album Astro-Creep 2000 with my mum who was also a big fan.  My mum and I were also big fans of classic horror films, and I can remember one year around Halloween my mum and I were excited because Rob Zombie was hosting classic horror films on the Sci-Fi Channel.  From Rob Zombie hosting films that year, I discovered two of my favourite films, both being films that Zombie considered naming his band after, one was Carnival Of Souls, and the other being White Zombie from 1932 starring Bela Lugosi, which as we all know became the film that Rob Zombie would name his band White Zombie after.   

White Zombie is an interesting film, it is a low-budget independent horror film, released in 1932 at the end of the silent era and the beginning of talkie films.   Most of the actors in the film, were well known silent era actors, who were struggling to keep their careers going in the new era of talkie films, so it would make sense that they would take on an independent film role like this, and then there is Bela Lugosi.  Lugosi had just done Dracula for Universal Pictures the previous year in 1931, and had established himself as a big name horror actor, then he signs on to do a low budget production for Vicor and Edward Halperin when his career was at it's height, rather than at a point that his career was waning like the majority of the other actors in the film.   White Zombie was directed by Victor Halperin and produced by Edward Halperin, with a screenplay by Garnett Weston.   The film is inspired by the 1929 novel The Magic Island by William Seabrook, and it helped to popularize Voodoo Zombies in film.  The film was distributed by United Artists.

White Zombie stars Bela Lugosi as "Murder" Legendre a white Haitian voodoo master who creates zombies, Madge Bellamy as Madeleine Short who is engaged to Neil Parker (John Harron), but who captured the heart of Charles Beaumon (Robert W. Frazer) a rich plantation owner.  Beaumont invites the couple to get married at his plantation in the West Indies, but he has a secret plan to steal Madeleine away from Neil, and engages Legendre to "kill" her and turn her into a zombie so that he can possess her.  With the help of the missionary Dr. Bruner (Joseph Cawthorn) Neil learns that his bride is not dead but rather a zombie, and they seek to free her.   To appreciate the acting of the cast, I think that it helps to understand their background as silent actors, and that the film itself has many elements of a silent era film.  I think that the actors are great in the film, especially Madge Bellamy, and of course Bela Lugosi is absolutely fantastic, with his mesmerizing glare.  The make-up effects were also done by the legendary Jack Pierce who was most famous for his work on the Universal Monsters franchise.   Speaking of the actors, I find the story of Madge Bellamy absolutely fascinating, she was a prolific actress throughout the 1920s in the silent era, and she struggled through the 1930s and early 1940s to keep her career going.  Then on Jan 20 1943, after her boyfriend broke up with her and started dating another woman, she went to his apartment, and took out a small pistol and fired three shots at him, all narrowly missing him.  This act gave her a lot of publicity and effectively ended her acting career, she did one more film, and one more play, before retiring soon afterwards.  Madget though, shall never be forgotten for her stunning beauty and her big amazingly expressive eyes, and it is those eyes, and how it seems much of the acting of her character is portrayed through those eyes, that helped her to be so amazing in her role in White Zombie.  Also speaking of eyes, Lugosi's hypnotic eyes also really made this film.  Some fans have hailed this as being of Bela Lugosi's greatest films, and I do not disagree with them on that, this definitely ranks up there with Dracula as far as Bela Lugosi's performance goes.  I love that Bela takes every role as seriously as if he were playing a role as big as Dracula, no matter how small or low budget the film is, and that is a mark of a real professional and passionate actor.

What really works for this amazing film is the atmosphere that is created through the wonderful artistic shots.  I feel like this film doesn't get the attention that it deserves, there are some beautiful shots, that use some wonderful effects of shadows, that work really effectively.   This film like the early horror films, does a great job at creating horror through atmosphere.  Sadly I feel the success of films like Dracula, and Frankenstein greatly overshadowed the lesser known classics like White Zombie, and I feel the exceptional greatness of those films also contributed to the negative critical reception of the film.   White Zombie received mostly negative reviews from the critics, though it was successful with the viewers, and ended up being a profitable film, and a great example of an early talkie independent horror film.   If you are watching White Zombie and some of the sets look familiar, that makes sense considering that much of the film was shot on the Universal backlot, as well as at RKO-Pathe, and Bronson Canyon.  The film used sets that were used in 1923's The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, 1931's Frankenstein, 1931's Dracula, 1927's The Cat And The Canary, and 1927's The King Of Kings.    

Overall I think that this is an interesting and fantastic classic horror film, there were talks about doing a remake recently of it, however there seems to be an issue with potential rights to the film, even though the film is public domain.   Being that it is a public domain film it is quite easy to find a copy of it, and I highly recommend checking it out.  Though it is easy to find a copy, finding a copy with a decent image and sound however is a bit more of a challenge, even most of the DVDs out there, are taken from badly deteriorated copies of the film, but even a poor quality copy of White Zombie is still definitely worth seeing.   Like I said, this is an odd film, and it seems like it would have worked just as well as a silent film, as it does as a talkie film, and I like that awkward style that that creates for the film.  Great atmospheric horror film.   Also just a note, don't expect Romero esque flesh eating zombies, the zombies in White Zombie are based instead on the Haitian voodoo zombies.  The modern zombies popularized by Romero's ...Of The Dead series didn't come around until much much later.   So if you want to experience a wonderful piece of horror film history, that is underappreciated by most, but well loved by its devoted fans, then I highly recommend checking out White Zombie with Bela Lugosi and Madge Bellamy.