Horrorfest 2010: White Zombie

I tried to watch WHITE ZOMBIE for Horrorfest last year but I couldn't get past the poor sound quality of the print used on the version I was watching. I gave up about twenty minutes in and wasn't happy about it, because it had looked good so far.

This year I decided to give it another try and just stick with it regardless of the sound quality -- I figured it was good enough to at least get the basic point of the movie, and the movie itself is only a little over an hour long.

Anyway, it was good -- I've read several negative reviews of the movie mostly mentioning how bad the acting is. I didn't really notice because I was busy paying attention to Bela Lugosi, who plays the villain, and he was great.

This flick came out about 30 years before PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES but they have a lot in common. While PLAGUE featured a voodoo master who had recently returned from Haiti, WHITE ZOMBIE takes place entirely in Haiti. Lugosi plays a voodoo master with a badass name: Murder Legendre. Decent. Aside from being a voodoo master, he also runs a sugar cane mill. So, his voodoo powers come in handy as he makes people rise from the dead, enslaves them, and then puts them to work in the mill. Again, kind of like the dude in PLAGUE who had the zombies working in his tin mine. I think modern zombie movies should go back to that theme of using zombies as slaves. It's a nice angle.

The plot involves a young couple who are about to be married (John Harron and Madge Bellamy). They've been invited to have their wedding at the Haitian plantation of the wealthy Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer). Beaumont has ulterior motives, however -- he's in love with the bride to be. In a last desperate attempt to win her, Beaumont turns to Legendre in the hopes that some voodoo love spell can be used on her. Legendre's suggestion is much more sinister: why not kill her and bring her back as a zombie slave. Then, she'd be Beaumont's to do with as he pleases. Beaumont reluctantly agrees.

The rest of the plot involves putting this plan into action, and the efforts of the groom and a local missionary (Joseph Cawthorn) to rescue the bride to be from Legendre's creepy castle stronghold.

The movie is interestingly shot and has some pretty sweet music selections. The visual compositions can be a little confusing at times, maybe because of the not so great source material. It's my understanding WHITE ZOMBIE was considered a "lost" film at one point, so I guess DVD manufacturers are working from whatever battered prints they can find instead of original source material. This might be partially because, unusually for the time, WHITE ZOMBIE was actually an independent production made outside of the studio system. A lot of times it gets lumped in with the classic Universal horror films, for a few reasons -- it's from the same time period where Universal horror was at the height of its popularity, it stars Universal horror icon Bela Lugosi, it was made on several left over sets from Universal classics like DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN, and Universal legend Jack Pierce did the makeup.

The zombie stuff is definitely creepy. Again, they're not exactly the zombies we're used to today. They're brought back from the grave with voodoo magic, and don't seem to have a hunger for human flesh. They're able to perform menial tasks as long as their master commands them to via mind control. They have creepy blank expressions but don't seem to decompose and rot like modern zombies.

The whole dynamic of zombies walking and operating along with normal people is disturbing. In one scene, Beaumont goes to see Legendre in his sugar cane mill, and he's picked up by a horse and buggy. He gets in the passenger seat, and then is creeped out when he looks over and sees the coach is being driven by a zombie. From the front steps of the plantation, the bride and groom can look up into the hills and see the zombies walking along at dusk, going about their business. And when Beaumont arrives at the mill, we see the zombies in action, dumbly going about their routine. One falls right into the machinery and no one cares, because they're all zombies.

In the end, the real reason to watch this movie is for Lugosi's performance. Like most movies I've seen him in, he overshadows almost everything else. His character is also the strongest in the script, even though he's basically just completely evil and doesn't have much going on. Still, it's great to watch him recite his lines as he carves a voodoo doll right in front of his next victim, who is slowly undergoing the change from living human to zombie, unable to do anything but sit dumbly at the table and watch Lugosi plot his doom.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, there's a supporting character who I found particularly intriguing -- Beaumont's loyal manservant and butler played by Brandon Hurst. The first time I heard Beaumont say his name in the movie I did a double take -- Silver. His butler's name is Silver. Seriously. I wonder if it's a nickname. After all, the butler's an old guy with white hair. Maybe Silver is a reference to his hair? Or, maybe it's literally his last name. I mean he wouldn't be the first guy in history with the last name Silver. Still, it's funny to listen to Beaumont summon Silver. Especially later on in the action when Legendre is attacking Beaumont and Beaumont needs Silver to save his life. Loyal to the end, Silver grabs a serving tray and goes in for the kill. I loved Silver so much, at the end of the movie as the action was hitting its peak, I was kind of hoping Silver would pop up out of nowhere and save the day like R2-D2 or that carpet from ALADDIN.