White Zombie

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White.Zombie.1932.(Horror).1080p.BRRip.x264-Classics

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This is a horror classic. A wealthy traveler(Robert Frazer)is smitten by a lovely young woman(Madge Bellamy)on a cruise ship and invites her and her fiancé(John Harron)to hold their nuptials at his plantation home on the island of Haiti. Harron is promised a high paying job to insure a visit. Frazer's darkest intentions are to lure Bellamy away from her fiancé; and enters an alliance with an island zombie master(Bela Lugosi) to win the possession of the young woman...alive or dead. Bellamy suddenly falls ill and dies only to be resurrected as...yes, a zombie...and Frazer's love slave. A strange and bizarre finale determines the captivating, but mesmerized beauty's fate. Incredible otherworldly atmosphere and the eerie, haunting Lugosi insures a high quality black and white thriller.

If you've seen a lot of Bela Lugosi's films, you might be tempted to think that apart from the horror movies he made for Universal Studios the rest of his films were crap. This wouldn't be fair but it also could easily be understood due to the huge volume of rotten films he made during his career (such as his movies for Ed Wood). However, dismissing him too quickly is a mistake, as this little film from United Artists is amazingly scary and exciting to watch more than 70 years later due to excellent writing, special effects and acting. The film is a super-moody thriller about zombies in Haiti. However, unlike Val Lewton's super famous I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, this film is much, much scarier and has a much creepier look about it. In particular, I loved the matte painting used for the castle on the cliff--it was highly reminiscent of some of the matte work done for KING KONG the following year. I also liked the look they gave Lugosi--looking more like the Devil than Dracula!! This, combined with his excellent delivery, made this one of his best performances. The film is about an evil man that is secretly in love with a woman he met on a cruise. This woman is about to be married and the evil guy asks her and her fiancé to come to his mansion to be married. In the meantime, he meets with Lugosi who informs him that they can fake her death and make her his zombie lover! Then we see the products of Lugosi's mad secret--an army of zombie workers that are used as cheap labor on the sugar cane plantation! They work incessantly and decline to become unionized--a dream come true for an evil capitalist! Once they use the magic formula and do some mumbo-jumbo, the new husband thinks his bride is dead and he spends much of the rest of the film drinking and brooding. The evil guy, though, isn't much happier with her as life with a zombie bride turns out to be pretty lame after all (what a surprise)! But, by now the deed has been done and Lugosi threatens the evil guy when he talks of wanting to restore the lady to her original condition. This is when the film really heats up and leads to a wonderful and super-creepy conclusion! I don't want to ruin it, but this film really delivers and deserves to be recognized as an exceptional film.

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.

Zombie movies from the '30's and '40's are quite different from the zombie movies most people know from the '70's till present time. In the '30's and '40's, zombies and voodoo kind of rituals always walked hand in hand. As a result of this zombie movies from the '30's and '40's have a certain creepy atmosphere and scary voodoo sound effects. "White Zombie" is the very first (still excising) zombie movie ever made. The zombies look extremely good and creepy thanks to the charismatic actors that perform them. Don't underestimate this people, acting with just your body and mostly face is also a form of tough acting. I think that it is thanks to the fine casting of the zombies that most of the scene's with them in it, work really well. Bela Lugosi is totally fantastic as sort of witch doctor and 'king of the zombies'. He plays one scary monsieur. I even tend to say that this is his best villain role he has ever portrayed, yes even better as Count Dracula. Lugosi was always at his best in roles like these and just like in "Dracula" he is once more acting very well with also both his hands and face, especially his typical horror-like-eyes make him one legendary villain. For the Lugosi fans this is an absolute must see! The story is very intriguing and sad and its told in a beautiful way. Especially the ending was fantastic and actually also quite tense. Unfortunately time has not been kind on this movie. The movie had been lost for many years until the '60's after acquiring the rights to distribute the movie, the quality was already beyond restoration, so now days we can never watch this movie in its full glory. The movie has the grainy and visual look of movies from the 1920's and at times small chunks of sound and music are missing. The cinematography is absolutely fantastic and the experimental editing provides some unique and extremely well looking sequences. It reminded me of some of Brian De Palma's early work. There is one unique and brilliant scene that I can't even describe. It features a split screen but the scene is constructed more complex than I make it sound. Really something you have to see for yourself. OK maybe the beginning of the movie isn't that good and memorable and quite standard and typical for the horror genre in the '30's but the last half hour or so is really unique, excellent, tense and just a shear delight to watch, mainly thanks to Bela Lugosi's his character 'Murder' Legendre (what a brilliant name by the way) and the story in which once more love conquers all. By the way this is the movie Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi were watching together in the movie "Ed Wood". Most people think that it was a Dracula movie with Lugosi but it in fact is this movie they're watching. A really unique little forgotten horror masterpiece, that's worth seeing already alone for its movie historical value and Lugosi's fantastic, passioned villain role. 8/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

A pair of intense eyes floats through the throbbing Hatian night. A horse-drawn coach halts at a ritual burial in the road, and the young couple inside is accosted by Zombie-master Murder Legendre (Bela Lugosi). The coachman flogs his horses into a gallop to avoid the arrival of Legendre's gang of walking dead. After this promising opening the only good scenes are of the Zombies toiling in Legendre's mill. But it's unfortunate there is even one good moment because the rest of the film is terrible. Actors stumble through lines and pause for long periods to remember them. Apparently there was little time for rehearsal and no opportunity for re-takes. The actors' movements are stiff, which is fine if you're a Zombie, but unforgivable if you have a speaking part. The story is as simple as can be, which isn't necessarily bad, unless you have to stretch it into a feature-length hour. Lugosi struggles with his English, tries to burn holes in the camera with his eyes (Why do people like that stuff?), and serves us a generous portion of ham. Madge Bellamy acts like a Zombie even before she becomes one, and her fiancée/husband (John Harron) is completely ineffectual. In fairness, producer Edward Halperin and director Victor Halperin never had a chance to make a good movie, considering the budget and the caliber of performers. They later proved they could do fine work when Paramount gave them an adequate budget and Carole Lombard for the underrated film "Supernatural." So I would urge anyone not already in Lugosi's legion of walking dead to watch "Supernatural" and avoid "White Zombie" before it's too late!

White Zombie is a 1932 independent pre-Code horror film directed by brothers Victor Halperin and Edward Halperin. Bad, uninspiring, unbelievable acting, combined with a ridiculous story, poor continuity and flow resulted in my really not enjoying this film. As I watched this as part of class I did not turn it off, but instead tried to focus on identifying some good aspects of the film. High points were the lighting, and a lot of the sets and scenery were impressively shown through the design and cinematography. That said, I was a zombie by the end of the film and was happy to be put out of my misery as the film was done in a merciful length of just sixty-seven minutes.

Zese are ze vurst fake ahk-cents you vill ever hair. Unt zee vurst ehk-tink you vill evair see. It's claptrap to excuse this 1932 dreck as "primitive" in style. Here are some other terrific films released that same year: "A Bill of Divorcement," "Blonde Venus," "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," "Freaks," "Grand Hotel," "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang," "The Old Dark House," "Red Dust," "Shanghai Express," etc. The apologetic idea that this pitiful script, virtually stationary camera and abominable acting are somehow to be excused because it was "only" 1932 doesn't hold up for one second. Even silent film acting had advanced WAY beyond this. The "sets" are matte paintings. Want to see some spectacular "sets," mattes and effects work? Try 1927's silent "Ben-Hur" for brilliance. I'm a Lugosi fan, without forgetting that his range as an actor was extremely limited; far more limited than Boris Karloff's. This is undoubtedly Lugosi's weakest work. The "supporting" cast are your worst nightmare of amateur community theatre. It is also NOT a Universal picture, as some comments mistakenly have it. It is a "Halperin" picture released by United Artists. Better it had remained "lost," so it might have retained some imagined "legendary" status. As it is, it simply exists as proof that every era of cinema has its own Ed Wood (in this case, the Halperin brothers). Already 49 when he made "Dracula," (he was born in 1882), Lugosi had been banging around Hollywood since 1920, when he appeared as an uncredited Indian in "The Last of the Mohicans." "Dracula" was his 43rd film, including his European silents. Many, many actors reached the epitome of acting skill during the silents (Lillian Gish, Greta Garbo, the Barrymores, Lon Chaney, Wallace Beery, Gloria Swanson and Janet Gaynor, to mention a few). Lugosi never did. Frankly, I wish I'd never seen this, since it drives the final stake through the heart of any notion that Bela Lugosi was a "great" actor. He was fine in his narrow range of "specialty" material, but could never escape or expand that range. His playing was as melodramatic in his last picture ("The Black Sleep") as it had always been. I'm grateful he got lucky with the stage and film productions of "Dracula," the role he was born to play. Sadly, "White Zombie" desecrates even his performance in his signature role.