I always thought this was a great old school title featuring the legendary Lugosi, fresh off of Dracula. He plays a guy named "Murder", he has a unibrow, and he controls people (much like Dracula) through that nifty clenched grip thing he does.

Sure, there's a old-timey romance featuring some squares, and Lugosi mostly wants the woman because he's a conniving old bastard in this movie, but I love the scenes where you see your villain going about, smugly putting pieces together on how he can sabotage our heroes' efforts.


For a public domain movie, I'm still surprised that Rob Zombie never remade this title, with his own hellish brand of white trash smut. He did include it on tv in his Halloween movie, though.

Another interesting idea would be a prequel. Get some other guy with a unibrow to play Murder Legendre and showcase him building his zombie army, where he mentioned turning the executioner who nearly executed him. That stuff sounds pretty cool, and we'd later see that type of premise carried out in "Son of Frankenstein", also with Lugosi coordinating the acts of vengeance.


Basically the first (voodoo) zombie movie, White Zombie also has some great imagery. I love looking at the graveyard sets and that weird mansion on the cliff. Some of it looks pretty artsy.

Also, there's that vulture that sounds like a dying lady. Definitely worth noting...

Lugosi was always one of my favorite old school horror actors though. Sure, he was pushed into a lot of crap movies, but he's got an exotic charm, and the way he talks is fascinating. I should make my B&W Challenge all about Bela Lugosi this year. Dude is a legend.


IMDb lists "Revolt of the Zombies" (1936) as a sequel. Anybody seen it?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028174/