WHITE ZOMBIE (1932)

One from the golden age of horror... This film (more widely known as the namesake inspiration behind Rob Zombie's band, White Zombie) holds up remarkably well even now, an immensely watchable film that has earned its place in cult movie history. Shot in black and white and dating back to the 1930's this is probably the earliest of the zombie flicks I have seen.  No gore or special effects to speak of in this film, it has to rely on plot, dramatisation, musical score and acting and it comes across as a very solid film even from the point of view of a modern (well 80's horror fan) movie fan.

The plot follows a young man Neil who is moving up in the world and his soon to be wife Madeline on the island of Haiti, where upon arrival they are greeted by stories and a close encounter of the undead roaming the island at night and working in the sugar mills (Good to see someone smart enough to put those zombies to work... think of all that free labour going to waste in modern zombie films) ... What I like about the story line in this film is that it sits closer to the historical origin of zombies than the "Night of the living dead" style zombies which is a pleasant change. Madeline has also unfortunately attracted the attention of Charles a wealthy businessman from the island who decides that since he can't have her he will turn her into a zombie.

Some kind soul has been kind enough to upload a remastered version of this classic! check it out below!

Check out our review for Revolt of the Zombies

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REVOLT OF THE ZOMBIES (1936)

I hear this is supposed to be a loosely based sequel for seminal zombie film White Zombie, and also directed by Victor Halperin (who directed White Zombie) it does seem to follow on after that first film, at least chronologically, with reports filtering back to the Allied forces in French-Austria that there were in fact zombies in Angkor (in the orient) which starts a military expedition to find and destroy the secret the zombies, after a failed attempt to extract information about the zombies from a priest they had previously captured  from the Orient, fearing the Zombies could be used against the alllied forces

There's a subplot around Claire part of the expedition who falls in love with Cliff (after they've been in the orient a few months or so) but accepts a marriage proposal from Armand to make Cliff jealous..... which works and she ends up marrying Cliff after he finally confesses his love for her, its all a little hammy in that 1930's kind of way, but after that's all out of the way its starts to get a little more interesting and the movie moves along a little faster.

Not to be defeated in love or life Armand persists and unlocks the secret of enslaving the unwitting into zombie-hood to do his bidding and eventually creates an army of zombies (one should remember that the zombies in these early films are not the decaying flesh eating creatures made popular in movies like the Night of the Living Dead etc... rather they are more slaves of will in a state of hypnosis like trance) Armand threatens to turn Cliff into a zombie like he as done to everyone else unless Claire agrees to marry him in exchange for Cliff being left unharmed.

Without giving away the plot I will say the ending left me a  little underwhelmed, but over all its a decent enough watch, and interesting from an historical point of view. I will say that the passing of time  and events in the film can be  a little unclear as well which makes what is an otherwise pretty cool story a little disjointed.

Obviously being shot in 1936 this is a black and white film and the audio has that scratchy feel to  it as well. I know that many people don't like to watch black and white cinema but if you can get past that its a fairly decent watch, I don't think it comes up that well against White Zombie, but its a fairly cool watch as well. Like Most B&W films it does rely on dialogue, and a decent story line and lets face it the special effects and gore were non-existent back then, so it has to stand up as a story on its own as well.

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