Famous early zombie film holds up well today despite inevitable creakiness. It wasn’t made by one of the studios which is partly why, I think, it has such devoted cultists. It helps that Lugosi’s in it, too, of course - I think part of the appeal is “well, anyone can like Frankenstein and Karloff, but Lugosi and White Zombie... that’s special.”But that’s not enough on its own – this is a well made movie (making it mysterious why the Halperin brothers never went on to a more substantial career afterwards) with a very strong story, based partly one imagines on the Faust legend: a Caribbean businessman who covets a beautiful woman does a deal with devil-ish Bela Lugosi where Lugosi turns her into a zombie.
Despite the low budget Lugosi’s cliff top lair is impressive – there is some strong emotional stuff with the woman (a sexy one) going zombie and guys going crazy over her, and a climax with zombies going on the rampage and people falling off cliffs.
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