Madeline (Madge Bellamy) and Neil (John Harron) travel to Haiti where they are to be wed. Unfortunately for the loved up couple, devious local Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer) has designs on Madeline and gets voodoo witch doctor 'Murder' Legendre (Bela Lugosi) to make it appear as though the young woman has died. In reality, she is under a powerful zombie spell and is brought back from the grave to become Beaumont's obedient love slave.White Zombie, starring Bela Lugosi, is considered an early horror classic by many, who laud the film for its eerie dreamlike atmosphere and expressionist/gothic imagery. I, on the other hand, found it all rather disappointing, the extremely sluggish pace and hammy acting (Lugosi leading the charge, with his evil zombie eyes and silly zombie grip) leaving me distinctly unimpressed.Yes, there are some memorable visuals, most notably Legendre's creaky sugar mill (powered by zombies), his cliff-top fortress and its cavernous reception room, but there are also long stretches where nothing much of interest happens (most of the scenes involving the expressionless Madeline), making it the sort of film likely to put all but the most ardent of Lugosi fans into a catatonic state.3.5 out of 10, rounded up to 4 for IMDb.

If you're looking for a movie about undead cannibals that walk around with their rotting flesh falling off or want to see intestines get ripped out of people while they're still alive, you're going to be very disappointed.White Zombie is one of the first zombie movies ever made, and it's still one of the scariest. It's a creepy and atmospheric movie from the time when filmmakers made true horror movies that didn't rely on cheap jump scares or guts and gore.Bela Lugosi's character is probably one of the most evil villains in a horror movie. In some ways, he's worse than Dracula. Dracula could always blame it on the curse...what's this guy's excuse? He's just a sadist.The zombies are frightening to look at, especially the "chief executioner". He's comparable to Count Orlok from Nosferatu or Erik in Phantom of the Opera from 1925 (in fact, the whole movie feels like a silent movie). I bet the actors cracked up a lot during the making of the movie, though.Everything in White Zombie looks creepy, from start to finish. It's like a very bad dream. The graveyard, the house, the castle...and then there's the darn vulture. Stop making those awful noises! But fortunately, since this is an old movie, it has a happy ending where the villain is defeated, and our heroes (hopefully) live happily ever after.Forget overrated zombie movies like Dawn of the Dead and garbage like Fulci's "Zombi", and watch a true zombie movie instead.

I would guess that there is some film geek out there that could dispute this notion with some obscurity that no one has ever heard of, but for all intents, this is the first zombie movie. Of course, these are not shambling brain munchers or lightning fast infected. These are not the zombies that litter indie horror nowadays. No, the zombies we are speaking of here are of the old voodoo variety. Maybe still shambling in their own way, but mindless hypnotized minions, set one destruction at the whim of their master.The movie sets an eerie tone right from the outset as a young couple moves to the West Indies and we open on their carriage ride to their new plantation, but something interrupts that ride. There is a ceremony going on at a crossroads, a voodoo ceremony at that. They are burying their dead in the road to prevent grave robbers from stealing the bodies. It immediately sets a wonderful midnight mood to this movie, as the crowd chants their songs. Seems our young lady has met a man who promises to be their guide through the exotic land, but he has more on his mind than that. He covets the young woman as his bride. Rather than try to win her the old fashioned way, he sets upon an evil plot. We meet Lugosi as Murder Legendre, one of his absolute best roles. He runs a sugar plantation where the workers seem to do anything their boss desires, in fact they do because they are all hypnotized zombies. Legendre tempts this young man with the idea that he can hypnotize our young maiden and make her a slave. Of course, the whole thing will eventually go awry, as you can never trust an evil mastermind.There are plenty of eerie scenes in this movie, including an odd march of the zombies, as they descend down a hill on their way to accomplish their master's commands. Even more, the theme of hypnotism is played out in the cinematography of the film. The actors often move with a slow steadiness. The camera pans and sweeps with serene movement. The entire thing feels like a dream (or perhaps, a nightmare). This effect is heightened because most prints I have seen are not of the best quality, so the graininess of the film adds to the effect. Watch this movie on an October evening with the lights down low. It's not an outright terror, by any means, but there is an overwhelming hypnotic quality that will creep in and settle with you.

Moving into a new house in Haiti, the next-door neighbor's secret of running his profitable sugar-mill holds a deadly secret for his success, and when she eventually stumbles upon it, he takes drastic action to keep her silent and forcing her husband to stop him before she becomes a zombie-like slave under his control.With only a few mildly decent good points, this one feels like a really overrated film that barely warrants its status. What really works here is that there are plenty of rather good shots of the zombies in here that are quite fun, starting with the opening voodoo burial in the middle of the street which they pass by on the way to the house which really does look good. The first scene of them up on the hilltops has a pretty great look to it, as it shows them off in the distance and really comes the closest to determining the sheer number of them present in the film, and a really impressive scene is the one pan in the plantation showing scores of zombies divided into teams working on numerous different devices in a really large, multi-tiered workshop really looks good. This one here even manages to contain a really chilling grave- robbing from the crypt where it shows the zombies move the coffin from within is a gloriously Gothic sequence. There is a whole lot to this film from their look as well, with the blank expressions, robotic movement and bulging eyes that create a distinct look here. The last big plus is the final confrontation, which injects some action to the proceedings with the voodoo being fashioned and the possessed attempting to carry out an execution order against a friend leading to a fine if brief confrontation with the creatures that comes off nicely as it does give it a little life and keeps it from slipping lower. Otherwise, these here are all that works for the film as this here is a really lackluster film. Most of that is due to the film not doing much of anything for most of the running time. This one talks out everything and doesn't seem concerned with giving it too much action, as in a film that short, it can be crucial to keep interest going, and this one spends most of it doing nothing. For a huge part of the time there's nothing going on as his attempts to control her mind and his dealings with the father as their attempt to come together for their agreement makes for some really bland, boring action-less scenes for the most part and it makes the film feel a lot longer than it's running time indicates. The last flaw in the film is its pathetic excuses for zombies. Those used to more modern fare will have a hard time getting any fear out of these creatures, and they really only serve several scenes they're present. This here doesn't treat the zombies as threats, making them even less frightening than normally featuring in such films since the little screen-time, nonthreatening nature and un-modern behavior from these zombies really destroys this one. These issues are the flaws with the film.Today's Rating/PG: Violence.