Oct. 14, 2013, Movie of the Night: White Zombie (1932). White Zombie is a low budget horror film from 1932 starring Bela Lugosi, and is credited with being the first feature length zombie movie. I must say that this film actually surprised me, and I ended up enjoying it quite a lot. I tried to go into it with the mindset of a film goer in the 30s, and with that mindset, I was able to enjoy this film very much. There are some parts of the film that are very well done, and others not so much, but for its age and budget, I was able to look past that. The film is about a young couple, Neil and Madeline, arriving in Haiti to be married. It is explained that Neil had arrived earlier, and Madeline has just recently arrived by boat, where she has met a Mr. Charles Beaumont, a wealthy plantation owner, who has convinced the two of them to come stay at his plantation for their stay. As they arrive by horse drawn carriage, the driver stops and they witness a voodoo burial taking place in the middle of the road. The driver explains that these people fear a group of local people who dig up and steal the corpses, so they bury them in the road where there is a constant human presence to keep nasty folks at bay. As they proceed further on, they are stopped by a man in the road, who takes an interest in Madeline. He approaches her window quietly without saying a word and starts to stroke her arm, when a small group of men appear from the dark. The carriage driver instantly recognizes them as zombies, and quickly drives away, while the mysterious man has stolen Madelines scarf. After the couple arrive at Mr. Beaumonts home and are shown their room, Mr. Beaumont leaves for a meeting. We are later shown that Mr. Beaumont has left to meet the mysterious man from the roadside, who is actually a plantation owner named Murder Legendre (Lugosi). It is revealed that Legendre is actually a voodoo mystic, and all of his workers are zombies. All of whom are former enemies of his, which he has made into undead slaves. Beaumont has come to him because he has fallen for Madeline, and wants her for himself. Legendre reveals that he could make her into a zombie for Beaumont, and she would be completely loyal. Beaumont eventually agrees to the plan, and the story takes off from there. While I enjoyed this movie, and it has been reviewed more positively in recent times, when it came out it was a bomb, and I think it was mostly due to poor timing. A year before Lugosi had wowed audiences with his performance in Dracula, and while he does an excellent job in this film, his character just isnt as interesting as Dracula, and of course people couldnt help but compare the two films. Also stated at the time, and still today, the film has very poor acting, and I would say that the four leads are decent, but the other side characters can be pretty weak. Lugosi does a fine job as always, coming off as a man who knows he is powerful, and to try and stop him is laughable. As he does horrible things to people, he does it with an evil grin, and playfully chides them on. The other leads are fine, but comparing their performances to Lugosis, he is the clear winner. I guess another thing that could be picked on is the performance and portrayal of the zombies. This film uses the original form of a voodoo zombie, are a dead body risen and made into a mindless slave, and I thought they did a decent job. The film even goes on to explain that in reality these people may not actually be dead, but their hearts and minds are. So the zombies are portrayed as pale skinned and wide eyed, gaunt looking people, which is how I imagine a mindless slave. I also have to give these actors credit, but when they play zombies, they barely blink, and you just have this never ending stare, which I thought made it more real. There is even a scene where the zombie workers are throwing sugar cane into a manual thresher, and one of them collapses and falls in, while the rest just keep going, totally oblivious, and all we hear are these awful, wet grinding noises. This film was very low budget compared to other horror films, but I think that helped it a bit. Because of the budget, the film was shot on a Universal back lot, where they cobbled together their sets from previous horror film sets, which instantly upped the production value. There might be a piece of Draculas castle here, a chink of Frankensteins tower there, but they also made sure to stick with the tropical theme throughout, and it works; it gives it an overall good visual theme. Ill agree that this film might not be everybodys cup of tea, but I think it is good, and there is no doubt its influence on modern zombie films. If youre in the mood, Id say give it a try.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 02:20:35 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015