Victor Halperin only directed four films, three of which were irrefutably cinematic disasters while the fourth, White Zombie, is the source of much critical polarity. Screenwriter Garnett Weston (It’s a Gift) issues a scathing criticism of marriage and tyrannical labor as the filmmakers haphazardly create the first zombie film in cinema history.
When Neil Parker (John Harron, Angels with Dirty Faces) and Madeleine Short (Madge Bellamy) arrive at Charles Beaumont’s (Robert Frazer) plantation in Haiti in order to exchange vows, the host attempts to persuade the bride-to-be to run away with him. Madeleine subsequently rejects Charles’s uncouth offer. Charles then contacts Legenre (Bela Lugosi, Dracula, Ninotchka, The Wolf Man, The Black Cat, Son of Frankenstein), a sugar mill owner who revives the dead in order to procure cheap labor. Legenre listens to Charles’s tale of unrequited love and grants the lovelorn a vile of his reanimation powder in order to secure his object of desire. Shortly after Madeleine becomes emotionally atrophied, Charles returns to Legendre and begs him to restore Madeleine to her former self. Legendre then drugs Charles as the former’s motives become apparent. Neil, in the depths of depression after being informed his bride has died, is approached by Doctor Bruner (Joseph Cawthorn) with the news that Madeleine may still be alive as he outlines the history of the country and its heritage involving voodoo practices. Neil quickly departs to find his wife as he confronts Madeleine’s zombie master.
Some critics cite White Zombie as a cinematic disaster while others hail it as a masterpiece. The ideas, intentional or not, are nonetheless intriguing while the film’s production and acting are undeniably atrocious.
Issuing White Zombie benefit of the doubt, we are presented with an interesting critique of the abjection of the female as Weston gives us a trio of males whose ambition is to acquire the “object” of their desire (the latter epitomized quite succinctly in the figure of a zombie). We watch as Madeleine is “possessed” by Neil after the two exchange vows before Charles literally possesses via her zombification. Legendre then drugs Charles in order to take charge of Madeleine prior to the film’s climax, where the maiden once again changes hands. Cunningly, Neil and Madeleine are first cast together in a singular frame, not after they have been married, but only when she has been transformed into an emotionless zombie, as we are given Weston and/or Halperin’s critical interpretation of marriage. This leitmotif of matrimony is most powerfully (and subtly) felt in Halperin’s casting of Bruner, who served as the officiate of the Parker wedding, in the same manner as Legendre when the latter approaches Charles’s estate.
The theme of possession is symbolized by Lugosi’s signature stare as an eye motif appears throughout the film as droves of zombies stare listlessly ahead while a vulture, a symbol itself of Legendre’s predatory nature upon the (un)dead, peers over the proceedings (juxtaposed by the presence, at times only by sound, of a dog alongside Bruner). Also, though perhaps an interpretative stretch, is the rapacious nature of the Faustian bargain that Charles strikes with Legendre in exchange for the voodoo powder by which to ensnare Madeleine (which, in and of itself, can be argued to be representative of cocaine in the manner in which Legendre covets it, Charles’s desire to obtain it, and its effect upon its users).
Lastly, and most potently, the theme of worker exploitation is uncompromisingly presented in Legendre, a figurehead of misaligned Imperialism and morally corrupt slave driver who forces his employees to labor until death. The effects of Legendre’s malevolence is witnessed during film’s most chilling scene in which a zombie stumbles and falls to his death into a mill while his fellow workers continue their given tasks, thus grinding up their peer, without pause. The scene is followed shortly thereafter by Neil, attempting to drown his sorrows after the burial of his wife. He sits alone, encompassed by cheers from others, while being surrounded by the celebratory crowd’s harrowing shadows, which dance mockingly free and carelessly on wall behind him.
Now, for all of the aesthetic merits of the film, Halperin and crew committed several cinematic no-no’s during the film’s production. For example, the image of Legendre clasping his hands, the action by which he summons his zombie drones, is repeated ad infinitum. Madge Bellamy hardly needed to act once her character had completed her transformation into a zombie as her co-stars rival her stifled acting. Furthermore, the worst cases of hard edits in the history of cinema are housed in this film as Bruner, explaining his theory of Madeleine’s circumstance to Neil, instantaneously jumps from behind his desk before staggering back, making him appear to be the victim of pedial Tourette’s. I counted a total of six such cuts during the film’s sparse sixty-nine minute running time. I can only hope that Harold McLernon, the film’s editor, isn’t responsible for such celluloid maiming and that White Zombie’s legacy as the “lost” production is true in that the estate of Stanley Krellberg, which owns the copyright to the film, refuses to release the original footage in order to allow the work to be restored in its entirety.
Regardless of one’s feelings concerning the aesthetic quality of the production, White Zombie, once again intentionally or not, possesses an eerie charm which few would deny possesses the viewer. There exists an irony in Garnett Weston’s themes of abjection and worker exploitation in that Victor Halperin hired second- (some would say third-) tier actors in his low budget drive to create a chilling tale of love, voodooism, and malevolence.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
