Victor Halperin’s White Zombie is a pre-Code horror film, credited as the first full-length zombie movie. While some characters make choices solely to push the plot along, Arthur Martinelli’s haunting cinematography by and Bela Lugosi’s performance as “Murder” Legendre, the villain who creates and controls zombies, make this chiller worth watching.
Buy White ZombieMadeleine Short (Madge Bellamy) has come to Haiti to meet up with her fiancé Neil Parker (John Harron) with plans to get married immediately. After meeting Madeleine on the voyage from New York, Charles Beaumont (Robert W. Frazer) invites the couple to get married on his plantation, but he has an ulterior motive to get her for himself. Charles seeks help in obtaining her from Legendre (Lugosi), who’s known to traffic in voodoo. Legendre says all he can offer is to turn her into a zombie, which Charles agrees to and is given a potion to start the process.
After the wedding ceremony, Madeleine appears to die and is buried. Legendre and Charles go to her tomb and revive her as a zombie. Back at Legendre’s castle, Charles has second thoughts about what has been done to Madeleine only to discover Legendre also has an ulterior motives to get her for himself, resulting in Charles being turned into a zombie.
Neil and local missionary Dr. Bruner (Joseph Cawthorn) discover Madeleine’s body gone and Bruner presumes Legendre is to blame. They rush to Legendre’s castle where they must fight Legendre’s zombies to rescue Madeleine.
Lugosi has a menacing presence throughout, particularly from the way his eyes are shot in close-up and superimposed in different scenes. It’s not clear why Madeleine is so trusting of Charles, whom she has just met. It’s even less clear why Charles trusts the evil Legendre, who is known as for creating zombies, but lust will drive men to desperate actions. Garnett Weston’s script allows for Charles to achieve a form of redemption.
The video has been given a 1080p/MPEG-4 AVC encoded transfer at an original aspect ratio of 1.37:1. The blacks range from inky to faded shades. Whites can bloom, like Neil’s suit, too bright and cause the loss of detail. The focus isn’t very sharp, especially on the side of the frame. A close-up on Lugosi’s face towards the end offers the most texture detail. Some frames appear to have light bleed on the sides of the frame. The audio is available in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. There’s a noticeable hiss throughout. When any of the elements get too loud, such as the music, shrieking vultures, even the dialogue, they distort. There are no extras.
White Zombie is a fun, spooky relic. Plus, any film with dummies thrown off a cliff earn bonus points from me. The Blu-ray from Film Masters is for those that can appreciate its historical significance as opposed to those looking to be wowed by its A/V presentation as the film is in need of a restoration.
