Movie Review: White Zombie (1932) directed by Victor Halperin
Madeleine Short has come to Haiti to join her fiance Neil Parker. On the ship over, she met plantation owner Charles Beaumont, who shortly became her very good friend. Mr. Beaumont offers his fancy mansion as the site of the young couple’s wedding, and is so taken with Neil that he offers to appoint the young man as his agent in New York City. What a nice man! Of course, if you’ve seen any of the advertising for this film, you know it’s a horror movie so something must be wrong.
Neil hasn’t been at his bank job in Port au Prince very long, so he’s not conversant with the native customs. He and Madeleine are baffled when their coach has to stop for a burial ceremony being performed in the middle of the road. A bit later, the driver stops to ask directions of a man with intense eyes (Bela Lugosi), who grasps Madeleine’s scarf. When the driver sees who’s with the man, he immediately starts the coach rolling again. He warns the young couple of the living dead. “Zombies!” The driver dumps them at the Beaumont plantation entrance.
The couple are startled by a figure coming out of the dark, but it is only Dr. Bruner, a local missionary who’s been summoned to perform the wedding ceremony. Dr. Bruner may be a little scatter-brained, but he knows Beaumont is not the type to be so generous to strangers, and wonders what the catch is.
The catch is that Charles Beaumont has fallen in love with Madeleine himself, and is determined to have her. Thus he is willing to make a cruel bargain with “Murder” Legendre, the man with the intense eyes and owner of the local sugar mill. Beaumont’s initial plan is to turn Neil over to Legendre to make vanish, on the assumption that he will then be able to seduce Madeleine. Legendre, who claims the ability to read people’s minds by looking in their eyes, assures Beaumont that this plan will not work. He counter-proposes turning Madeleine into an obedient zombie who will possess all her beauty but none of that pesky free will.
Beaumont tries one last time to change Madeleine’s mind, but in the end feels he has to administer a drug that in combination with Legendre’s voodoo powers will put her in a cataleptic trance. Once Neil is convinced his wife is dead, Legendre can raise the woman to be Beaumont’s lover.
This was the first feature-length Hollywood zombie movie, loosely inspired by a 1929 book about Haiti’s customs and superstitions. As such, it became influential in how Haiti, voodoo and zombies were depicted for years. Pity that it didn’t try very hard for accuracy on that first one.
Good: Legendre gets just enough exploration that we can get a feel for where he’s coming from without ever losing track of the fact that he’s a villain. “Murder” is a man of humble origins who has used cleverness, treachery and uncanny abilities to turn his enemies into his slaves and assume a position of relative wealth and power. He enjoys humbling those who have looked down on him. Despite some handwaving about the drug used to induce catalepsy, it’s clear that Legendre has actual supernatural powers of some sort, being able to open doors without touching them, and direct the zombies without verbal or physical commands.
By comparison, Beaumont is just a privileged white dude who thinks his wants are actual needs.
The most horrifying scene is early on, as one of the sugar mill workers stumbles into the grinder and is (offscreen) ground up, without a sound or reaction from any of the other workers, because they’re all zombies.
Less good: The director wasn’t used to the new sound era, and some of the cinematography shows this, with odd wipes and staging. And of course there’s the whole thing with stereotyping Haitians. Some bits of the plot get a bit incoherent (like, how did the two maids get from Beaumont’s house to Legendre’s?)
Content notes: This is a pre-Code film, and there’s a naughty shot of the bride to be in her lingerie. Also Beaumont is at one point reasonably willing to have non-consensual sex with Madeleine, but changes his mind after she’s been zombified.
Overall: A bit creaky and showing its age, but a fine performance by Lugosi and at a little over an hour won’t feel like a waste of time, excellent for double features!
