White Zombie
USA, 1932
Director: Victor Halperin
Screenplay: Garnett Weston
Cast: Béla Lugosi, John Harron, Madge Bellamy, Robert Frazer
Genre: Horror
Plot
Neal and Madeleine, Americans visiting Haiti, come to the castle of Mr. Beaumont, whom they met during the boat trip to the island. The young couple is about to get married, and the wealthy landowner Beaumont had offered Neal a job in New York.
On the way, from the horse-drawn carriage, Neal and Madeleine witness some native funeral rites. A little farther on, the startled black coachman warns them of the presence of “zombies” in those parts; seeing how some strange individuals are walking towards them. At the head of the undead is a sinister character who seizes Madeleine’s scarf. After this small setback, the horse-drawn carriage continues its journey until it reaches Beaumont’s mansion.
Once there, Neal and Madeleine meet Dr. Bruner, the missionary who will soon marry them. They are convinced that the stories of the living dead told by the coachman are nothing more than absurd superstitions of the locals. But Bruner, who has been living in Haiti for many years, believes that a dark truth is hidden behind these legends…
Beaumont is notified by his butler of the arrival of the guests. In reality, the wealthy gentleman is only interested in Madeleine; she is the only reason he has invited the couple. From the moment he saw her on the boat he fell madly in love with her. The job offer to Neal was just an excuse to lure the couple to his house. Beaumont intends to win the young woman’s favors and make her forget about her fiancé.
To achieve this, he is even willing to resort to black magic: he turns to Murder Legendre, a kind of sorcerer who owns a mill. This is the same character who led the zombies that Neal and Madeleine saw from the car. Legendre was the mysterious individual who took the girl’s scarf from her (no doubt to use that garment in one of his dark necromancies). The sorcerer tells Beaumont that there is a way to get what he wants, but that to do so “there is a high price to pay”….
That same day, the marriage between Neal and Madeleine took place, officiated by the missionary Dr. Bruner. In the evening, while the wedding is taking place at the Beaumont castle, Legendre performs a baleful voodoo ritual: he has taken a thick candle, scrapes it into the shape of a woman, wraps Madeleine’s scarf around the figure and begins to burn her…
Meanwhile, Madeleine vanishes in the banqueting hall of the castle, before her stupefied husband and the no less astonished Beaumont. She is apparently dead, and in a coffin she is taken to a crypt the next day.
But Legendre, not forgetting what he promised Beaumont, has the power to “resurrect” her – albeit in the form of a zombie….
Neal, with the help of Dr. Bruner, will try to clarify what happened and rescue his beloved from death.
Comment
This unjustly forgotten little classic is one of the first zombie movies in the history of cinema, long before “The Night Before the Living Dead” (George Romero, 1968). In the role of the evil one we have nothing less than a grim and imposing Bela Lugosi, the famous “Dracula” (Tod Browning, 1931), who in this occasion is an evil sorcerer able to control the zombies in Haiti.
Legendre (Lugosi) has an entourage of undead at his service. These zombies, who in life were his enemies, the sorcerer uses them as slaves. We see here a concept quite different from the one that decades later other directors would use; because the zombies of the director Victor Halperin are not beings that besiege the living to eat their flesh (At no time devour anyone), but only the apathetic and robotic servants of the sinister necromancer, who blindly obey his will (The sorcerer manages them through hypnosis and a strange mudra or gesture with his hands). Legendre uses the zombies among other things to work tirelessly turning the wheel of his mill.
When Madeleine returns in zombie form, she still looks good (these walking corpses do not rot) but she behaves like an automaton, does not speak, shows no emotion and always has a blank stare. It looks as if his soul has been removed. That is the “high price” Beaumont had to pay to have her… And now, when it is too late, he regrets having hired the services of the perfidious sorcerer (who also threatens to turn against him).
However, Madeleine is not completely dead in life, it seems that the spell has not completely annulled her; for a slight memory still lingers inside her… A memory of love (a-mort: undeath) that grows stronger as Neal approaches the castle.
The castle of Beaumont, located on a cliff-top coast, adds a distinctly gothic touch to the film. The cemetery and crypt also contribute to the gloomy atmosphere.
Besides being one of the pioneers in its subject matter, “White Zombie” is also one of the first independent films; it was financed by the director himself and his brother Edward. Undoubtedly, a classic that deserves to be vindicated.
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