White Zombie

Dir. Victor Halperin

68 Minutes

USA 1932

Starring: Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn, Robert Frazer, John Harron, Brandon Hurst

***1/2/*****

Fascinating and quite-well put together pre-code horror film that is a worthy successor to Bela Lugosi's breakout in Dracula the year before (though not nearly as effective as Florey's terrific Murders in the Rue Morgue in the same year). The film starts with young lovers Madeline and Neil arriving at the Haitian plantation of their friend Charles Beaumont, who has offered for them to marry on his land. But Beaumont has selfish designs and tries to convince Madeline to run away with him. When his plans to woo her are unsuccessful he turns to Legendre (Lugosi), who turns those who work for him into mindless zombies. Madeline is soon put under the zombie spell, but Beaumont is surprised by the lack of any soul and wishes for her to be put back right. But Legendre has no interest in accommodating Beaumont's wishes. 

While White Zombie is certainly a B-picture by every stretch of the definition, Victor Halperin has some nice moves that he experiments with in giving off a suitably creepy atmosphere. And the climactic sequence comes across like a dance, with hardly any dialogue (with the exception of a few cries for help) and beautifully choreographed music in its terror (a huge contrast to the nearly entirely silent DRACULA). And the themes of mesmerization and close-ups of Lugosi lulling his victims under his spell feel in direct conversation with the previous film, and as a result Halperin and Browning's films are a nice pairing, both in their visual contrasts but also their thematic connections.White Zombie is an often terrific little chiller, and a beautiful precursor to what would be coming a few years down the line with Tourneur's I Walked With A Zombie.

October 21, 2019