Classic Horror: White Zombie

Zombies, as if you haven’t noticed, are one of the mainstream’s new darlings. Long a staple of low-budget horror films, they have more recently groaned, stumbled and lurched their way onto the A-list. (Rumor has it that Natalie Portman will star in the film adaption of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.)

Though there are exceptions, these modern zombies were largely spawned by George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. They are, as that title implies, reanimated corpses – most of whom have a mindless, and insatiable, hunger for human flesh. But nearly 40 years before Romero’s film, the first movie zombies arrived on the screen. They were, like their more distant descendants, shambling hulks who had once been human, but they were incapable of desire. What’s more, they weren’t even undead.

The 1932 Universal film White Zombie is considered the first full-length zombie movie. In it, the wealthy young owner of a Haitian plantation falls in love with another man’s bride. He invites the young couple to his mansion, then slips off to consult the sinister Murder Legendre (played with delicious menace by Bela Lugosi and his eyebrows). Mr. Murder informs him that there is only way he can lay claim to the lovely blonde Madeleine – he must slip her a zombie mickey, so that Mr. Murder can work his vile magic on her. Poor Madeleine dies at supper, and is buried. A day or two later, Murder and her would-be lover, Charles, take her out of the tomb and back to Murder’s castle (all looming dark stone and crashing water). Her bereaved husband, Neil, finds the tomb empty and runs to the local missionary, Dr. Bruner (played by comic actor Joseph Cawthorn – whose best-known tagline, I suspect, was “Do you have a match?” since he says it repeatedly and in the oddest places). Dr. Bruner tells him there are only two possibilities – either her corpse has been stolen by one of Haiti’s death cults, or she isn’t dead.

When Neil admits his confusion, Dr. Bruner goes on to explain that there are many superstitions in Haiti, but many of the “natives” came from Africa – and before that, from Egypt, and from nations that “were old when Egypt was young.” He then reads a bit of law (Haitian penal code section 249, which was also referenced by Wade Davis in The Serpent and the Rainbow stating that giving someone a drug which induces a coma is attempted murder, but if that person is buried alive, the charge is murder, whether or not the victim actually dies. So, these zombies aren’t the living dead (though Neil and Madeleine’s coach driver at the beginning of the film introduced them as such), but the drugged-out victims of a potion which (given his earlier African tangent) Dr. Bruner apparently believes came from darkest Africa. Neil, after much hand-wringing and exclamations that Madeleine would be better off dead than in the hands of “natives,” agrees that they must save her. And so they do.

The film moves slowly, but maintains a fair degree of tension throughout. The director and crew make the best of their severely limited budget, relying on high-contrast shadows, split screens, optical effects and stylized makeup to create an atmosphere of dread. The acting (which was widely criticized when the movie was first released) isn’t really so bad, if you keep in mind that many of these performers got their start on the music-hall stage or in silent films.

While later zombie movies would pick up and explore social and political themes (Night of the Living Dead has been called the “first-ever subversive horror movie”), White Zombie steadfastly refuses to do so. Despite the implication of the title that Madeleine is unique in becoming a white zombie, nearly all of the zombies in the film are white. The only black zombies in the movie appear early on, slaving in Murder Legendre’s sugar mill. One of these hapless wretches even staggers and falls into the churning blades of the mill, without so much as a second glance from the filmmakers. The remaining male zombies – white men all – were once enemies of Mr. Murder, and now serve as his bodyguards. (And these zombies, despite Dr. Bruner’s earlier lecture, may in fact be undead. Certainly they fail to bleed when shot.) As I watched, I kept thinking that White Zombie might be ripe for a remake, if only to flesh out the sociopolitical implications of a wealthy white man keeping brain-damaged black slaves, and selling another white man the means to create a willing, unprotesting female slave. (Though, to be fair, Charles does later regret his decision.)

As it happens, there has been a remake – a student film made at Hampton College, which is making the rounds of the festival circuit. The filmmakers’s mission statement reads, in part: “White Zombie is a diamond in the rough. The characters in the original are one dimensional… Here, we reworked the characters, giving them interesting back stories with multifaceted personalities. The character of Jordan [Madeleine in the original] is no longer a weak, purely innocent female; she is now a strong, confident young woman moving from one stage of her life to another with blood on her hands. She’s in control of her sexuality and knows what she wants… White Zombie’s themes are underdeveloped, but for a modern audience these themes can be enhanced and reappropriated… White Zombie’s themes are about interpersonal and gender relationships that are missing in current zombie films all the while still commenting on our current political environment questioning ruthless capitalism and the illegal alien work force in America.”

While I’d still be interested in a fresh take on the story set in colonial Haiti, I’m interested in seeing this modern interpretation. I’ll let y’all know once I’ve gotten my hands on a copy.