‘White Zombie’: the first-ever zombie movie
George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead was a seminal moment for the horror genre. It used zombies as antagonists, terrifying audiences due to their existence in limbo – not fully dead or alive. There’s an uncanniness to zombies, who look like us but can’t communicate properly, instead hunting out the flesh and blood of living humans. They remind us of our mortality, their rotting flesh an unpleasant reminder that after we die, our bodies will begin to decay and look unrecognisable to the person we once were.
After Romero’s film was released, he went on to make more zombie movies, notably helming the incredibly successful Dawn of the Dead. The ‘90s saw the zombie phenomenon boom in countries like Japan and China, with some of these films morphing genres with zombie characters, such as comedy. In fact, zombie comedies have become incredibly popular over the years, from Shaun of the Dead to The Dead Don’t Die and television shows like iZombie.
We can’t forget the massive fanbase that The Walking Dead attracted upon its release in 2010, as well as the series of movies that gave an undead spin on classic stories. In 2013, we got the Romeo and Juliet-inspired Warm Bodies and in 2016, the commercial failure – and frankly terrible – Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Yet, the history of the zombie movie dates back to the early 1930s, when Bela Lugosi appeared in the Victor Halperin-directed horror movie White Zombie. Released in 1932, the film was not received well, which is unsurprising due to the circumstances under which it was made. A small budget was used, leading it to be shot at night. Because of this minimal spending, the crew had to reuse items from other movies filmed at Universal Studios, and the results were not great.
However, the movie alludes to the much darker origins of zombies – a kind of horror movie antagonist that has become incredibly simplified by Hollywood. White Zombie follows a woman who is turned into a zombie by Murder Legendre, a master of voodoo, upon arriving in Haiti. Legendre also owns a sugar cane mill, with all his workers being zombies.
Before zombies were humanised by quirky Hollywood rom-coms, they were actually part of Haitian folklore. When African people were brought to Haiti to become slaves at the hands of the French occupation, countless men and women died as a result of intensive labour or suicide. There was a belief that a voodoo master named Baron Samedi would grant slaves their fate – either entering a heavenly afterlife or being cursed to become zombie-like creatures – forever enduring life as a slave.
Put simply, the origins of zombie history are heavily rooted in slavery and Voodoo, a far cry from the kind of zombies we see in modern cinema. White Zombie, as the first zombie film, alludes to their complex history, although it hardly does so sufficiently or respectfully.
White Zombie was released a few years after the first talkie, and many of the actors in the film were not used to performing with their voices. Instead, many still relied on the way they would’ve acted in silent films – using exaggerated movements and placing great emphasis on their facial expressions.
While the movie is far from perfect, it holds the title of the first-ever zombie movie, subsequently paving the way for one of cinema’s most popular phenomenons – albeit one that strays significantly from its origins.
