best movie i've ever seen.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

An early independent 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 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 wheels. 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.

The legendary George Carlin once said that zombies are unreliable, and while he wasn't referring to the quality of the films they appear in, I'll hijack his statement and agree with him. I'd also add that they're inconsistent in their behavior. Sometimes they run, sometimes they shamble, and sometimes they come back for revenge.The undead behave a little differently than what we as modern viewers have come to expect in"White Zombie." No, I'm not referring to Rob Zombie's industrial metal band - I'm talking about the 1932 film directed by Victor Halperin and starring Bela Lugosi. It's considered by many as the first feature-length zombie film, and its walking dead are less of the shambling, flesh-eating than they are voodoo and mind-controlled variety.The story takes place in the West Indies, and gets into swing when a witch doctor turns a newly-wed bride into a zombie slave. He's been doing it to the natives, but people only really start to care when he does it to a white woman. The commentary on slavery and racism here is daring for a movie of its time, though I'd be hesitant to claim it has anything particularly interesting to say about its subject matter. Bela Lugosi stars as zombiism-practitioner 'Murder' Legendre (could you have a name more badass than that?) and he chews up the scenery in a performance with more than a passing similarity to his one in "Dracula" a year earlier. I think the only difference is his facial hair. He glares at the audience and wears comical expressions throughout, and is a joy to watch whenever he's on screen. His ham is well complimented by the rest of cast, who bring a slice of their own cheese to this black and white sandwich. There's some inventive cinematography on display, but only occasionally, as the film resembles a stage play for the majority of its runtime. There are a couple of impressive, albeit primitive matte paintings, and a bizarre effects sequence where the screen is split in half with a Star Wars-style screen wipe that doesn't quite work. On a technical level, the film is ambitious. Sadly, the version I watched came in one of those "10 movies for 5 bucks!" packs and it wasn't exactly what I'd call "lovingly restored." The dialogue sounded like it was recorded on a potato. It's not just the technical elements that make films like "White Zombie" and others from its era a little more challenging to watch nowadays. 34 years after it was released, George Romero redefined - or, more bluntly - DEFINED the zombie genre with "Night of the Living Dead." It's difficult to see how scary "White Zombie" was to viewers in 1932 since our perceptions of horror have been molded by our experiences with another century worth of the genre's evolution. In fact, the most effective thing in the film was a large bird of prey that sounded like a woman screaming. If it wasn't so funny, it would be disturbing."White Zombie" hasn't lost all of its impact, however. It's still entertaining, and admirable for its claim as the first zombie film. There's a lot to appreciate about these films that did something new in their genre, and it's truly mind-boggling to think that there was ever a time history when the cinematic zombie was a fresh idea!

To begin with, I'm a Bela Lugosi fan. He had a pair of the most evil eyes this side of Lee Van Cleef. And I think he did a typically good job of portraying a mysterious and sinister character. By today's standards the plot is not very deep. But it is nonetheless enjoyable. Fans of this early era of horror movie know that it's often not only the film that is black and white. Good and evil are clearly defined. And for my taste I believe that's why I sometimes enjoy these old movies of all kinds. There are no veiled social messages to have to sort through. One thing I noticed about this film are the early attempts at screen effects. Surely not to be compared with modern effects...I think some of the ones used in this movie were...effective. They add dimension to the film. Especially when you consider that this film is over 80 yrs. old I think some great imagination was shown in this regard. I didn't think the acting was bad. I didn't think it was great, either. But for me it didn't interfere with my enjoying the film. You'll also notice that in some scenes you can actually see the breath of the actors who appear to be in something like a dungeon. I don't know the exact circumstances that caused this. But it adds another sense of atmosphere to the film. I also like the very last line spoken. I got a chuckle out of it. I'd recommend this movie to anyone who would like to see the beginning of the evolution in film horror.

This film was introduced to me as being low-budget, and while it made sense upon watching it, the White Zombie certainly exceeded my expectations. To begin with, the light/"color" effects were aesthetically pleasing. I say "color" because of how hard they drove it home that Madge Bellamy's Madeline would indeed be the "white zombie" the title referred to. This could be considered a cheesy or ham-fisted entity, but Bellamy was truly an entity with power on screen, though only in appearance.The acting itself (and often the writing) is actually quite bad pretty consistently. That can have its merits though, especially in this genre. For instance, much of that acting contributes well to the horror/zombie aspect of the film; what would be considered a "classic" element of it today. Bela Lugosi takes it over the top, with his signature presence. While I have trouble getting genuinely invested in films of this nature, Lugosi is truly some sort of force of amusement. The cast is thoroughly entertaining, if nothing else.On top of being a good "classic" horror/zombie movie, White Zombie had several independent merits, both creative and social. For instance, one scene when Neil (played by John Harron) is having something of an emotional breakdown after losing Madeline, and the use of shadows on the wall and noise itself are excellent. It's a visually engaging scene, and one that stuck with me, though White Zombie uses light and shadow extremely well throughout. Sound is a great tool in the film as well, such as the too-quiet scene in the sugar mill when Charles Beaumont, something of an antagonist, pays a visit to Lugosi's Murder Legendre. The grinding noise is striking, and builds to the tone of at least Lugosi's sinister character quite well.Socially, White Zombie implies a lot about the colonialism that affected at the time through its treatment of setting, lore, and the actual people by Beaumont at his manor/plantation. This, however, has far more relevance than being simply a setting today than it would have when it was released, as nothing is explicitly said about these things in the film. But with a modern view, there's certainly something to be seen there.All in all, White Zombie is simply enjoyable and at several points, artful. This is more than can be said for what we would generally think of as a "low-budget" horror movie.