Touches You

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Madeline (Madge Bellamy) and Neil (John Harron) travel to Haiti where they are to be wed. Unfortunately for the loved up couple, devious local Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer) has designs on Madeline and gets voodoo witch doctor 'Murder' Legendre (Bela Lugosi) to make it appear as though the young woman has died. In reality, she is under a powerful zombie spell and is brought back from the grave to become Beaumont's obedient love slave.White Zombie, starring Bela Lugosi, is considered an early horror classic by many, who laud the film for its eerie dreamlike atmosphere and expressionist/gothic imagery. I, on the other hand, found it all rather disappointing, the extremely sluggish pace and hammy acting (Lugosi leading the charge, with his evil zombie eyes and silly zombie grip) leaving me distinctly unimpressed.Yes, there are some memorable visuals, most notably Legendre's creaky sugar mill (powered by zombies), his cliff-top fortress and its cavernous reception room, but there are also long stretches where nothing much of interest happens (most of the scenes involving the expressionless Madeline), making it the sort of film likely to put all but the most ardent of Lugosi fans into a catatonic state.3.5 out of 10, rounded up to 4 for IMDb.

This movie hails from the era when Haiti had cornered the market on zombies. No raising from the dead, no alien induced zombie, no foot dragging or brain eating fun zombies. These zombies were gainfully employed at the sugar mill. Young Bela boasts an "Eddie Munster" hair style, pointy ears, manicured eyebrows, and a goatee. Along with his superimposed eyes he has come to epitomize evil. He is the one who actually creates zombies in what is now a campy film from a former horror classic.Madge Bellamy stars in the title role, a bride, abducted by another man and turned into a zombie. The ending wasn't exactly a cliff hanger. A good movie to watch with "Reefer Madness" if you catch my drift.

I'm sorry, but this movie about a young couple, Neil Parker (John Harron) and Madeleine Short (Madge Bellamy) arriving at the Haitian plantation of a casual acquaintance, Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer) where they plan to be married; only to be terrorized by a crazed plantation owner, Murder Legrende (Bela Lugosi) who wish to turn Madeleine into a zombie in order to join his legions of mindless slave workers, was not that good. It wasn't that entertaining. Yet, I will give the movie some credit for serving as one of the very first zombie movies ever, predating George Romero 1968's 'Night of the Living Dead' by 36 years. While zombie movies normally are portray as reanimated corpses or virally infected human beings feeding on the flesh. There was a time, where zombies meant living people under mind control, through the means of voodoo magic and drugs. Taken from spiritual Haitian culture, inspired by a Broadway play titled 'Zombie' by Kenneth Webb and influence by 'the Magic Island' by William Seabrook, director Victor Halperin and screenwriter Grant Weston hope to make 'White Zombie' into the next big horror movie, after the surprise hit of 1931's 'Dracula'. After all, it seemed the zombie film came out at a proper time in America with it paralleled the Great Depression. It highly reflect the powerlessness and misery felt by the American workforce. The American workforce felt like zombies themselves - mindless workers that are easily replaced. Yet, when the film was originally released, it only made decent money after a lukewarm response. Critics at the time, universally loathed it, and more or less people forgot that it existed. It was lost for a while, but it experienced a bit of a revival once it was found and released on television in the 1950s, and then later on video in the 80's. By that time, its film copyright claim has expired, causing the film to fall into the public domain. Now, anybody can make a DVD copy of this movie. Because of that, many of the film prints out there are in really bad shape, seeing how many of them, having been duped from second- or third-generation copies that is already in poor quality. So, don't be surprised, that the copies available on the market are either severely damage. My copy had some really bad editing cuts and a few missing scenes. Not only that, but very bad audio. I can barely hear any dialogue in this film. Obviously, this movie need a criterion collection edition. Despite that, the movie did get some cult viewers, overtime that love the film. After all, a band was named after it with the lead singer taking 'zombie' as his last name. Nevertheless, with great spooky atmosphere with shadows/silhouettes, epic Universal sets, fantastic classical music and great cinematography, I still really couldn't behind this film. First off, the pacing was bad. It really took forever for this film, to finish. Plus, it doesn't have much twist or turns, so it highly predictable. It doesn't help that the main two protagonists in the film were kinda boring. Don't get me wrong, Madge Bellamy is one of the sexiest flapper ever, but she doesn't do anything in the film, besides being a damsel in distress. John Harron is just dull. He really doesn't do much in the film, besides moan and cry. Another character, that really annoyed me, was Dr. Bruner (Joseph Cawthorn). I didn't like how the filmmakers made him into a comic relief, rather than a wise 'Abraham Van Helsing' stock character. All those scenes where he is asking for a light is annoying and repetitive. Regardless of what scholars may think about him, the idea that he's supposed to be the 'light-bearer' doesn't hold any weight. The reason for this; is why would a 'light-bearer' be the one looking for a light? Anyways, the movie delivers the ideas that he might have powers, so badly. There is scenes, where a hand, supposedly snap a person, out of Murder's control, but the film never truly establish, if it's Dr. Bruner or not. Despite that, I have to say the quality body language work from Bela Lugosi is a lot better. We know, what he's doing with his deadpan v line monobrow stare, and the gripping on his hands. It's easily noticing, that he is taking control of people. Lugosi is much more menacing with his sinister stage presence than his natural, heavily accented voice. It really adds to the intensity of the film. Yet, I do less of that screeching vulture that follow his character, around. That bird was irritating. Plus, the zombie could had been a little more scary, rather than goofy hokey buffoons. Like the mind-control gimmick, just wish, the zombies were smarter. Also, I didn't like, the fact that one of the extras that plays the zombie was in blackface. It was somewhat offensive, even for the time. Even the way, the movie portray Haitians was also kinda upsetting. I really didn't like how they were made to look like servers and lesser beings to the white race. A good example of this, is the horse sequence scene, where the rich white heroes are riding horses, while the poor black man is riding a donkey. However, that's just nitpicking. This film is from a bygone era, that I will cut it some slack on that. Yet, all of the jarring on-screen mistakes like the 'hold my nose' take and fake tombstone does weight this movie, really down. There is little excuses for those. Overall: I have to say, this movie is meh. It's sucks, because I was really dying to see this movie. I really wanted to like 'White Zombie' more, but after watching it. I just got really dead tired. Still, it is a very influential horror classic that needed to be seen, at least once. At least, it's better than its 1936's loose sequel, 'Revolt of the Zombies'. Now that was dead on, unwatchable.

If I was informed correctly this was the first zombie movie, at least the first movie which had the word zombie in its title. Even though the zombies in here appear as living dead they are very different from the flesh eating undead creatures that were put in the world by Romero. Zombies originally are people who are bewitched by a witchdoctor who uses voodoo on them so they blindly follow the instructions of their master. They are slaves with no will of their own, little to no feelings and their souls are literally stolen from them. The movie is largely experimental, with a very simple plot and very little character development. It thrives mostly on atmosphere with the creepy castle of the witchdoctor being a great setting largely reminding me of Dracula's castle. That is also who the witchdoctor reminded me of, Dracula. No coincidence that both Dracula and this witchdoctor were played by Bela Lugosi. Those hypnotizing eyes of Lugosi, yeah I wouldn't want to meet those in the dark. For a pioneer it was a good effort and much more enjoyable than I walked with a Zombie. Somehow one day I hope we will see a voodoo zombie movie with a better plot and characters (or if there is one I would love to hear) even though I think Lugosi's powerful stare will be hard to beat!