One of those ‘Public Domain’ films that i’d always been meaning to get around to, but never quite managed. I’ve probably seen ‘White Zombie’ more than any other public domain movie via it being chopped, changed and remixed into the many MANY ‘rad’, ‘hip’ and ‘totally tubular’ repackagings of PD movies in the 80s and 90s…So when ‘Gold Ninja Video’ announced a presentation of the film from a 16mm print from the Toronto reference library that promised a little more ‘grizzled’ edge to the feature than the pristine Kino and Kino adjacent remasters. I figured this was probably the best way to catch it and ordered a copy. Ultimately, I wasnt dissapointed.

The plot finds us in Haiti as ‘Bride to be’ Madeline meets up with her Fiance Neil ahead of their wedding and honeymoon. During the stay they’ve been invited to stop at the residency of one ‘Charles Beaumont’ a plantatian owner who has a past history with Madeline, and was spurned by her in favour of Neil.

It quickly becomes apparent though that Charles is FAR from over Madeline, and has in fact invited them to stay at his residency with a deviously feindish plan. Teaming up with an evil ‘Voo-doo’ master LITERALLY called ‘Murder Legendre’ played wonderfully by Bela Lugosi, Charles plans to use dark magic and mysticism to turn Madeline into a ‘zombified’ state, with the intent to have her all for himself.

But ‘Murder’ is in fact a LOT more malicious than Charles bargained for, and it quickly becomes apparent that his ‘Zombie’ magic is being used to run not only an entire sugar cane processing plant. but has given ‘Murder’ an army of mindless workers who bend to his every whim…and ‘Murder’ has eyes for Madeline too!

With Neil beside himself at the premature ‘death’ of his bride. he teams up with other residents on the island to learn more about ‘Murder’ his operations, with the hope that he may once again be reunited with Madeline.

For a more contemporary horror fan, I could maybe see this dragging a little script wise. apart from the not so subtle racist tones of ‘voo doo rituals’ and enslavement, which I imagine will put a fair few off before the 15 minute mark. the script is a really quite simple plot thats dragged out about 10-15 minutes past its comfortable ending point.

For folks who are used to older horror films and the way they’re paced. This isnt actually that bad for 1930s horror pacing wise, but I do think it could be a little bit tighter. the opening act takes a little while to get going and the second act crawls a little too until around the halfway point where it finally finds its momentum.

The oversimplicity of the plotting makes it quite hard to stay focussed on the films drive because, you almost know how this is going to play out pretty much right from the get go…which means that the urge to only half pay attention, or to drift off to social media or other things is STRONG.

What I can say in this films favour is the closing act is rock solid, really picks up the pace, has some wonderful moments, some solid lines and left me overall quite impressed with the picture. But I did ultimately come away from this one both kind of happy with the end result, but also wondering where nearly an hour went to in getting to the resolution we ultimatley did.

What IS this films saving grace is the direction and cine. While still playing with a few of the tropes of more traditional film making of the era. ‘White Zombie’ is BURSTING with creativity. Shots are clearly very intensely planned out, theres some phenominal tracking shots for the era, seriously quite unprecedented stuff for the time. and its clear Victor Halperin had a VERY strong identity for this film in terms of how it looks, how it plays out and the key focus of the visuals in telling the story it wants to tell…Honestly; if the film didnt look as good as it does, you could probably knock a whole star to a star and a half off my rating for this one.

The cine is phenominal, with intricately crafted compositions, careful cross fades VERY interesting use of screenspace and fantastically creative lighting choices that seemingly envelope the entire film in a thick black Vignette that only adds to the suspensful mystery surrounding the films subjects. There are moments where this feature feels utterly ‘otherworldly’ for lack of a better descriptive. Given this was a reletively independent production, I was all the more impressed by the sheer visual weight behind it. The word ‘iconic’ is thrown around a lot these days, but the visuals here most definitely ARE ‘iconic’ of just how rock solid some of this ‘oft’ derided public domain features that arnt really given a chance because ‘how good can ‘free’ be?’ can be.

The edit on this versions a *little* skittish due to the age of the print itself, but the transition work is wonderful, the cuts are pretty solid and the effects work here is memorable to say the least.

Add to this Lugosi’s performance here as ‘Murder’ being highly enjoyable and animate, while hardly a stretch for Lugosi, given he had only finished work on ‘Dracula’ 12 months prior to this, he still FULLY encapsulates the role, giving a feindish performance that manages to feel familiar enough to ‘Dracula’ to be familiar, but different enough that it really manages to stand on its own two feet.

Madge Bellamy as ‘Madeline’ gives a somewhat muted performance, but when she gets her moments. She runs with everything shes got, giving even something of a (for the time) progressive performance in the scenes where she stands up to Charles. Really, its her physical performance that won me over here, with her ‘possessed’ sequences genuinely coming across as quite creepy. I think she really understood the task at hand and easily gives the films some of its more memorable moments.

As for the rest of the cast, a good solid range of performances lie here with all of the cast fully embracing the picture with a good (for the time) level of animation both in delivery and physicality, its the final act that really pulls out all the stops and I dont think theres a ‘bad’ performance in the bunch here.

‘White Zombie’ is a little simplistic in terms of story, but what it lacks in nuance on the page, it MORE than makes up for in terms of what made it up on the screen. A visual delight, I think this may pair well with something like ‘Carnival of Souls’ as a decent ‘etherial’ double feature. One i’d definitely recommend catching at least once if your a budding horror enthusiast. While imperfect, ‘White Zombie’ did ultimately win me over, and I could easily see myself revisiting this one in future.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/white-zombie/