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'Back from the grave.'
Despite the success of Dracula, Bela Lugosi’s contract with Universal was not renewed in 1932 –
please check out our Bela Lugosi special to learn more.
But if Universal did not recognise his value, low budget producers did
and White Zombie is the first and probably best of the low budget horrors that kept Lugosi afloat during his leaner years.
Directed and produced by the Halperin brothers, White Zombie is believed to be the first film to use the word zombie.
‘Zombies!’
Shouted by an uncredited Clarence Muse who has a small but memorable role in the opening.
‘They are not men monsieur, they are dead bodies’
As the coachman bringing young couple Madeleine and Neil to the plantation house on Haiti where they are to be married.
Though the man who owns the house, Charles Beaumont is trying to undermine the wedding,
right up to the last minute.
‘We can be in Port-Au-Prince in half an hour’
Unsuccessful, he enlists Lugosi’s satanic Legendre,
to enact a more elaborate plan,
‘Do you mean that Madeleine was murdered so someone could steal her dead body’
and then bring her back to life, which has to rank as one of cinema’s creepiest ways to get the girl.
‘I was mad to do this’
The plot is nonsense and much of the acting is not great.
‘No, not that!’
But its not just Lugosi’s enjoyably evil performance that makes this worth watching.
The atmosphere is great, aided by sets borrowed from Universal and RKO,
which make this look one hell of a lot more expensive than it was.
Some of the technical tricks are surprisingly competent,
which sounds like damning with faint praise but much of this compares very favourably to the previous year’s Dracula.
The fact that this is pre-code, as evidenced by Madeleine’s gratuitous underwear shot
allows it to more fully exploit its sense of the macabre.
And although it does have some actors in blackface and some of its dialogue was dated even at the time.
‘Surely you don’t believe she’s alive in the hands of natives? Oh no, better dead than that’
One of its most powerful and best shot scenes takes place in the zombie sugar mill.
The metaphor for slavery seems a very deliberate one.
‘They work faithfully, they are not worried about long hours’
But above all, the reason that White Zombie succeeds is that, for all its hokiness, it’s entertaining,
which is something that defies analysis and criticism,
Lugosi is commanding.
‘The cost is heavy’
Yet plays Legendre with a twinkle that makes him quite distinct from Dracula.
‘I have taken a fancy to you monsieur’
and the melodramatic style throughout feels like the only way to handle a plot this ludicrous.
‘Nothing matters if I can’t have her’
At the time, it certainly damaged Lugosi’s career, deepening his typecasting as well as distancing him from the major studios,
but the film has lasted, thanks in no small part to his performance.
‘For you my friend, they are the angels of death’
You can watch it on Youtube or on Amazon if you can tolerate the hideous colourised version.
Thanks for watching. What other low budget horrors surpass their budget and what do you think of White Zombie?
Let us know in the comments below.