Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful creepy atmosphere !
Review: "White zombie" is one of Lugosi's best performances even better than Dracula ! But that's my personal opinion. The zombies are very impressive, they really looked like dead ! I also like very much Lugosi's lair near the sea ! A kind of a castle on the top of a cliff. The interiors are like a cathedral. Even it's sometimes slow paced, you'll never get bored. OK the other actors are not so convincing, but the atmosphere is wonderful creepy. For instance the mill where the zombies worked for Lugosi, the cemetery and don't forget the grazy voodou song at the beginning of the film ! Fans of old fashioned horror movies will find this little gem very delightful.
The quality of this Alpha DVD is quite good. Picture looks fine most of the time, even there are some jumps. The sound is not so great, but still acceptable. It's the perfect film for a saturday evening just before midnight.
Rating: 
Summary: GOOD HORROR FLICK AT THE RIGHT PRICE
Review: Bela in the early days is great to see even though he did some interesting films with Ed Wood.. This early 1930's horror/zombie flick set in Haiti with a power mad Bela is great with a seven course dinner which I partake in on a friday night (7 course = pizza + six pack). Don't expect a flashy DVD production with extras (go for other versions that are also available at Amazon). White Zombie is available at $21.49 as a dearer version that includes extras as well. Also Bela Lugosi Collection Volume 2 (currently out of stock) at $16.99 which includes Ape Man/Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorrilla/White Zombie. Hope it will be in print in the near future. See also Bela Lugosi Collection Volume 1 @ $16.99 that is still available and contains Devil Bat and Scared To Death. Back to pizza and beer, see ya.
Rating: 
Summary: Bela Leads the Zombies!
Review: First let me qualify this review as stating it is only for the version by the Roan Group and not any other. The Roan Group has mastered the best possible print for this 1932 horror film. Taken from the two best quality 35MM prints as opposed to the 16MM prints you usually see.
The print is very clean and relatively crisp with very little sketchy editing. The sound does need to be modulated periodically.
Lugosi is just terrific in this movie as the sinister 'Murder' Legrende, Haitian mill owner and zombie master. Robert Fraser plays Charles Beaumont, a local plantation owner who becomes obsessed with a young woman (Madge Bellamy) about to be married.
He invites her and her fiance (John Harron) to his estate to have their wedding all the while planning some way to win her. An hour before the wedding he becomes desperate and reluctantly approaches his sinister neighbour Legrende. Legrende's solution has dire consequences for all involved. T
he movie was obviously made a shoe string budget but there are plenty of striking visual images, especially those involving Bellamy after Lugosi gets to her. He is at his best looking positively statanic with his mesmerizing eyes and facial expressions.
The zombies are very creepy and are the precursors to zombie classics later made by Tourneur, Romero, Fulci and Raimi. For this and for Lugosi 'White Zombie' is a must see for any horror buff!
What also makes this a big step above other releases is that it comes with an audio commentary by Lugois Scholar Gary Rhoads, and also features two short, but interesting interviews with Lugosi. One in the early 30's, and one in the mid 50's towards the end of his life.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: For an old black and white horror film, this movie is especially notable. Bela Lugosi is striking as Murder Legendre, and steals the show without a doubt. I'd strongly recommend adding this film to your collection if you're an avid fan of horror.
Rating:
Summary: Kindly necromancer gives relationship advice
Review: Hardworking, professional necromancer employs hundreds of economically disadvantaged zombies in small business startup. He helps three young people caught in a love triangle sort out their feelings through dynamic tension exercises. Naive man comes to Bela for help to win girl's heart, but as wise Bela points out... "She can love, but that doesn't mean she can love you." Later when the rejected man reaches out to grasp Bela's hand, Bela smiles and says, "Now we understand each other a little better." Kenneth Web, author of a play similar to this movie, sued the movie makers and lost. Movie was plagued by many other legal disputes which resulted in loss of original footage. Loss of original footage makes full restoration difficult. This DVD is probably the best attempt we will ever have.
Rating:
Summary: One of Lugosi's better films as another master of the undead
Review: In many ways "White Zombie" is not only the first zombie movie it is also the last film in the baroque horror tradition of the silent films. This 1932 film directed by Victor Halperin was made for practically nothing even though is starred Bela Lugosi as "Murder" Legendre, in his first big role after the gigantic success of "Dracula," as the master of a different type of undead down in Haiti (Note: Lugosi apparently directed some of the retakes as well). In "White Zombie," Monsieur Beaumont (Robert Frazer) convinces a young couple, Madeleine Short (Madge Bellamy) and Neil Parker (John Harron) to get married on his Haitian plantation. Amazingly enough, he does this so that he can convince Madeline to run away with him. Needing help, Beaumont turns to Legendre, who runs his mill with zombie workers. Legendre carves a voodoo doll and with Madeline's scarf turn her into a zombie as well. Neil thinks that his wife is dead and gets depressed, sinking into a world of hallucinations and fevered dreams, while Beaumont quickly discovers that he is dissatisfied with Madeline's soulless husk and wants her turned back (even though this will undoubtedly do nothing to improve their relationship). Instead, the fiendish Legendre turns Beaumont into a zombie as well, which actually makes the couple compatible for the first time in the film. Meanwhile, Neil is convinced by a local priest that maybe he is not a widow after all and he goes off to play the hero. "White Zombie" never really frightens its audience, but instead sustains a high level of downright eeriness throughout, achieving its effect by taking such simple objects as the scarf used to wrap a voodoo doll or a rose containing poison and making them important elements in Lugosi's evil machinations. This film might be a talkie, but its sensibilities are those of the silent era, which actually works in its favor, even with Lugosi's distinctive accented voice. The result is a rather creepy film that ends up being an above average effort in Lugosi's career that I would put in his top five films.
Rating:
Summary: Bela Lugosi in the world's first zombie horror movie
Review: In many ways this first zombie movie is the last film in the baroque horror tradition of the silent films. This 1932 film directed by Victor Halperin was made for practically nothing even though is starred Bela Lugosi as "Murder" Legendre, in his first big role after "Dracula," as the master of a different type of undead down in Haiti (Lugosi apparently directed some of the retakes as well). In "White Zombie," Monsieur Beaumont (Robert Frazer) convinces a young couple, Madeleine Short (Madge Bellamy) and Neil Parker (John Harron) to get married on his Haitian plantation. Amazingly enough, he does this so that he can convince Madeline to run away with him. Needing help, Beaumont turns to Legendre, who runs his mill with zombie workers. Legendre carves a voodoo doll and with Madeline's scarf turn her into a zombie as well. Neil thinks that his wife is dead and gets depressed, sinking into a world of hallucinations and fevered dreams, while Beaumont quickly discovers that he is dissatisfied with Madeline's soulless husk and wants her turned back (even though this will undoubtedly do nothing to improve their relationship). Instead, the fiendish Legendre turns Beaumont into a zombie as well, which actually makes the couple compatible for the first time in the film. Meanwhile, Neil is convinced by a local priest that maybe he is not a widow after all and he goes off to play the hero. "White Zombie" never really frightens its audience, but instead sustains a high level of downright eeriness throughout, achieving its effect by taking such simple objects as the scarf used to wrap a voodoo doll or a rose containing poison and making them important elements in Lugosi's evil machinations. This film might be a talkie, but its sensibilities are those of the silent era, which actually works in its favor, even with Lugosi's distinctive accented voice. The result is a rather creepy film that ends up being an above average effort in Lugosi's career.
Rating:
Summary: White Wedding...
Review: Madeline (Madge Bellamy) and Neil (John Harron) are two young lovers on their way to get married. It's unfortunate for them that they ran into Mr. Beaumont (Robert Frazer), who convinces the couple to travel to his home in Haiti to tie the knot. Once there, things get really weird! Beaumont is so obsessed with Madge that he seeks the help of the local sugarmill owner / voodoo-meister named Murder (!) Legendre (Bela Lugosi) in captivating and possessing Madge. Well, old Murder has plans of his own, of course, involving his horde of zombie slaves and the potion that stupifies and de-humanizes them. WHITE ZOMBIE is a great movie with a nice, dark subtext about control and the consequences of obsession. Ms. Bellamy radiates innocence and beauty, while Bela is the perfect nemesis, giving stares that could curdle milk! A "must own" for horror / zombie fanatics (like me)...
Rating:
Summary: ". . . we may uncover sins the devil would be ashamed of."
Review: So warns the Christian missionary to Haiti who helps a young banker save his bride from voodoo-induced thralldom to a plantation owner who has kidnapped her. In White Zombie the sins were brought to Haiti by European colonizers. White Zombie (1932) is Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) transposed from an industrial society to the third world. The Haitian zombies slaving in Legendre's sugar mill are waiting for a Che Guevara, not a Lenin. In Metropolis a worker in the underground factory below the city continually moves the hands on a giant round clock, a task that doesn't seem to have any purpose. In White Zombie the undead go round and round in a circle, turning a mill to grind up sugar cane for Legendre, the mill owner who has simplified his labor relations by transforming his workforce into zombies. One zombie falls from his spot into a vat where he is ground up with the cane. None of his fellow workers notice; he doesn't even try to save himself as he falls.
Legendre has taken economic and political control of the island by enslaving its elite (the head of the gendarmerie and politicians), in addition to the unskilled peasants who make his sugar. Legendre gets the living betray their own kind. Once Madeleine has become a zombie she is tended by maids who obey their master rather than be turned into undead creatures themselves. Unfortunately for the Haitians, while Madeleine is saved from an eternity of playing Chopin on the piano with a glazed expression, the natives grinding the sugar cane are forgotten at the end. But once Legendre is out of the way, who will take care of the zombie mill workers and export the sugar? Maybe Madeleine's husband, the banker, can take over the mill. Everything will work out.
Rating:
Summary: The granddaddy of modern zombie films
Review: The great thing about zombie films is that you don't really need to spend any money on special effects if you don't want to: just the idea of the dead silently moving is horror enough. Many directors with low budgets and great imaginations have thus turned to the genre, producing such classic variations on the theme as I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE EVIL DEAD, and 28 DAYS LATER. But they all owe a debt back to this, probably the first "true" zombie film. Fortunately, this Haiti-set film holds up beautifully, with wonderfully evocative images. There's a completely wordless satanic mill, where the silence isn't even broken by the fall of one of the zombies into the great millstone; a haunted ruined castle by the sea like something out of Doré; a vulture that is used to wonderful effect in the film's last moments; and a beautiful undead heroine stalking around in her filmy negligee. (Inevitably she's named "Madeleine," so her irritating boyfriend can call after her, in BBC tones, "Oh, Madeleine... Madeleine... oh, Madeleine...") Bela Legosi, who was clearly not out for subtlety as the evil zombie master Legendre, is the perfect center figure for this expressionistic nightmare.
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