White Zombie (1932)

If the name of this film sounds somewhat familiar, that might be because musician Rob Zombie chose this to be the name of his band back in the day. Just saying.

Following the massive success of Universal's 'Dracula', studios suddenly realized that there was money to be made from horror pictures and so even the smaller ones tried to invest some of that sweet, sweet money in something scary. Enter the Halperin Brothers, men with a lot of ideas but not necessarily a lot of money at their disposal. Yet they managed to create an eerie zombiefilm that - despite some flaws - is still enjoyable today, almost a hundred years later.

The main draw of this one is obviously Bela Lugosi, who came fresh off 'Dracula' and was on a  roll. Unfortunately, he would accept practically anything and because of this, his career would go ever more downhill from this point on. But here, he still shines in all his hammy glory.

The story is rather silly, to say the least. There's a young couple, off to be wed at the house of a friend on the exotic Haiti. Unbeknownst to them, the owner of the house has the hots for the bride to be and wants her to be his. Failing to do so, he engages the help of a voodoo master (Lugosi) in turning her into a slave, but Lugosi has other plans...

You see, it's actually a lot more like a soap opera than a 'genuine' horror story, but that's not really the point. The great thing about 'White Zombie' is that considering its very limited budget, the Halperins managed to produce something that looks great. The sets are reused from other productions, but the lighting and cinematography makes them look decent enough. Just the plantation of Lugosi turns out to be some sort of creepy castle on a cliffside, for some strange reason, but well. It has some cool uses of Dutch angles, especially when the zombies are first introduced and though the music is sometimes repetitive (as in: the same stock music is used over and over), it works well enough. Lugosi's character looks a lot like Mephistopheles, with the funky moustache, goatee and eyebrows, but he could be effectively weird and otherworldly when he wanted to. The zombies look great too. They're not the rotting corpse-kind as introduced by George Romero, but the traditional voodoo-kind of soulless slaves, with blank expressions and a staggered gait.

That being said, there's no denying that some (if not most) of the acting is a little iffy and overblown. Maybe it's more typical for the age, but still. Especially our 'hero' of the story is an overly dramatic dweeb, but ah well. His bride (the titular white zombie) does her zombie-thing pretty well, and Lugosi is allowed to go completely over the top and back again anyway, because he's Bela Lugosi and we wouldn't want it any other way.

Also check the lack of reaction of one of the characters when he sees a zombie fall into a sugarcane mill and is ground to pieces. It's priceless.

Also also: if you want to check out 'White Zombie', be sure to find a decent enough restored copy. This film lingered quite a while in the public domain and there are various editions, but most of them are horrifyingly poor quality. Make sure you get your mitts on a decently restored version, or you might miss a lot of the fun.

This one is for the hardcore fans mostly. If you have no affinity with 1930s horror, Bela Lugosi or zombies, this won't be your cup of zombie tea. Or maybe just a pinpoint ,in a glass of wine, perhaps? (nudge nudge, wink wink)