White Zombie (1932)
Directed By: Victor Halperin
Starring: Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn, Robert Frazier
Length: 66 min.
Genre: Horror
The birth of the terrible B-horror movie. It was low budget, had terrible acting, terrible lighting, terrible camerawork, terrible editing, and the dialog was absurd. Bela Lugosi is the film's only redeemable quality.
Credited as being the first feature-length zombie movie, the zombies here were not rotting dead bodies, but living people more in a hypnotized state. Bela Lugosi plays a Haitian witch doctor with a group of zombies he controls.
The movie takes place in Haiti. Madeleine is set to marry one man, but a rich plantation owner wants her for himself. He enlists the help of Legendre (Bela Lugosi) and he says there's just one way to stop the wedding. The rich guy resists at first, but in the end poisons Madeleine and turns her into a lifeless zombie. The spell is finally broken when Legendre is killed and she reunites with her fiance.
If you like terrible B-movies, you might like this. Otherwise, holy shit was it fucking awful.
My Rating: 3/10
IMDB User Rating: 6.4/10 (7k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 86% (16-2), 57% of Audience (3.4 / 5 ; 7k votes)