I'm a big Bela Lugosi fan, as well as a sucker for '30s and '40s horror chestnuts in general. But no matter how many times I watch WHITE ZOMBIE, I'm just always a bit short of considering it a "good" movie. Lugosi is delightfully weird and mysterious as Murder Legendre, a sinister zombie master who commands a legion of Walking Dead, and who grants a favor to a jealous man by helping him possess the woman he yearns for -- by turning her into a mindless zombie!
The surroundings are purely macabre and unsettling. But despite these assets, something goes astray in the snail-like pacing. Some of the acting is hopelessly dated and exaggerated, most notably by con man Robert Frazer and, to a lesser extent, hero John Harron. It's interesting that Lugosi - who's often lambasted by critics for overdoing it himself - is perfectly "on," however.
WHITE ZOMBIE is still a "pretty good" horror movie in its own right for such a minor production. But it's not a film I would recommend to those younger viewers who tend to feel bored by older classic films.
The surroundings are purely macabre and unsettling. But despite these assets, something goes astray in the snail-like pacing. Some of the acting is hopelessly dated and exaggerated, most notably by con man Robert Frazer and, to a lesser extent, hero John Harron. It's interesting that Lugosi - who's often lambasted by critics for overdoing it himself - is perfectly "on," however.
WHITE ZOMBIE is still a "pretty good" horror movie in its own right for such a minor production. But it's not a film I would recommend to those younger viewers who tend to feel bored by older classic films.