An early horror movie, which stands as the first ever movie to feature zombies, or at least creatures that can be called zombies. Don't be put off by the typical plot, or the fact that these zombies are not of the modern flesh-eating variety seen in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, rather the old-fashioned mute slaves. WHITE ZOMBIE features some nice (if low budgeted) atmospheric scenes in graveyards, where bodies are ripped from their graves under the cover of the night and used in sinister black magic rituals where they are reanimated and set to work. You see, zombies are the perfect workers; they don't talk, they don't need paying, they don't even have a union!
We just know we're back in familiar horror territory when the film opens with two young lovers fleeing into an unknown world (in this case, Haiti) in a carriage, little realising the terrible situations they will find themselves in. Unfortunately a lot of potential impact is ruined when the actors begin acting - and we realise that they're hopelessly trapped in the past, their over-acting carefully built up in the silent movies and unable to let go, only a few years after the silent films had actually ended.
At fault the most? Probably the actor playing the couple's host, who permanently has manic hair, gleaming eyes, and a larger-than-life persona. The dashing hero is not in the least bit dashing, instead he keeps on fainting instead of battling the hordes of evil, and it is up to an old man to save the day in the final reel! What a wimp. The actress playing his wife isn't much better, it's difficult to distinguish her transformation from human into zombie seeing as she's just about catatonic for the entire film. Still, her woeful/soulless demeanour is a good one and scenes of her under Legendre's control are genuinely unsettling.
Thankfully, though, we have old Bela Lugosi hanging around the sets, giving us an actor to watch and recognise in all this madness. Lugosi was already typecast after making the fantastic Dracula, and it shows here, with maximum emphasis on Lugosi's evil appearance (complete with widow's peak and goatee beard). The film also employs the trick of having Lugosi's staring, wild eyes displayed in close-up, a technique Hammer relied on in their Dracula films with Lee substituted for Lugosi. You can really believe that Legendre is capable of hypnotising people with the smallest effort, and of course, being the baddie he gets all the best lines. The best line in the film is where the hero asks who the zombies are, Lugosi replies "For you, my friend, they are the Angels of Death!".
Okay, so much of the film is slow and static, but this is to be expected. To break up the dialogue we have some weird shots of zombies at work in the sugar mills, ignoring a fellow worker who collapses into the mill and is ground up in the mechanism. They just keep working, willed on by Legendre's powers, single-minded and single-purposed, with no thought of their own. To accentuate the fact that these people are supposedly dead, some crude black makeup is used to make fingers seem thin and skeletal, also in eye sockets to make the actors look like cadavers. While this might not be frightening to a modern audience, it is effective in a simplistic way.
WHITE ZOMBIE is perhaps a little too low key for it's own good, but there is some genuine suspense built up at the finale, where Lugosi clutches his hands together in a battle of wills with the hero and heroine, and the zombies are forced to walk off a cliff after good wins out in the end (and you just knew it would). This exciting climax compliments an atmospheric film which wrings maximum haunting impact from the zombies themselves.
We just know we're back in familiar horror territory when the film opens with two young lovers fleeing into an unknown world (in this case, Haiti) in a carriage, little realising the terrible situations they will find themselves in. Unfortunately a lot of potential impact is ruined when the actors begin acting - and we realise that they're hopelessly trapped in the past, their over-acting carefully built up in the silent movies and unable to let go, only a few years after the silent films had actually ended.
At fault the most? Probably the actor playing the couple's host, who permanently has manic hair, gleaming eyes, and a larger-than-life persona. The dashing hero is not in the least bit dashing, instead he keeps on fainting instead of battling the hordes of evil, and it is up to an old man to save the day in the final reel! What a wimp. The actress playing his wife isn't much better, it's difficult to distinguish her transformation from human into zombie seeing as she's just about catatonic for the entire film. Still, her woeful/soulless demeanour is a good one and scenes of her under Legendre's control are genuinely unsettling.
Thankfully, though, we have old Bela Lugosi hanging around the sets, giving us an actor to watch and recognise in all this madness. Lugosi was already typecast after making the fantastic Dracula, and it shows here, with maximum emphasis on Lugosi's evil appearance (complete with widow's peak and goatee beard). The film also employs the trick of having Lugosi's staring, wild eyes displayed in close-up, a technique Hammer relied on in their Dracula films with Lee substituted for Lugosi. You can really believe that Legendre is capable of hypnotising people with the smallest effort, and of course, being the baddie he gets all the best lines. The best line in the film is where the hero asks who the zombies are, Lugosi replies "For you, my friend, they are the Angels of Death!".
Okay, so much of the film is slow and static, but this is to be expected. To break up the dialogue we have some weird shots of zombies at work in the sugar mills, ignoring a fellow worker who collapses into the mill and is ground up in the mechanism. They just keep working, willed on by Legendre's powers, single-minded and single-purposed, with no thought of their own. To accentuate the fact that these people are supposedly dead, some crude black makeup is used to make fingers seem thin and skeletal, also in eye sockets to make the actors look like cadavers. While this might not be frightening to a modern audience, it is effective in a simplistic way.
WHITE ZOMBIE is perhaps a little too low key for it's own good, but there is some genuine suspense built up at the finale, where Lugosi clutches his hands together in a battle of wills with the hero and heroine, and the zombies are forced to walk off a cliff after good wins out in the end (and you just knew it would). This exciting climax compliments an atmospheric film which wrings maximum haunting impact from the zombies themselves.