This is considered the first zombie movie, and I’m not really into zombie movies most of the time, but I wanted to watch this because Bela Lugosi is in it, and also these zombies seemed interesting because they weren’t just the typical risen from the dead zombies, they were being hypnotized. But I found this movie quite boring, the first 15 minutes is actually really good in my opinion, it’s very mysterious and draws you in, the sugar mill scene was very disturbing and chilling. This is set in Haiti so the Murderer (played by Bela Lugosi) is this rich guy that owns the sugar mill, and his workers are all zombies that he hypnotized using voodoo. During the sugar mill scene you see mainly black workers, so I thought that the way the Murder hypnotized and brought the zombies back from the dead was meant to show that even after death the white oppressors and people in power still were trying to exploit black people for labor, and I thought it was a brilliant way to represent that, but after watching the rest of the movie I don’t necessarily think that’s what they were trying to represent. But it’s still my interpretation! Overall Bela Lugosi does a great job at portraying the Murderer and the concept of what he does is very disturbing.
However, this movie had a lot of racism. The way the native Haitians are portrayed is gross, they are shown as backwards and nonsensical. The scene where Dr. Bruner was describing the “crazy native ways” was just sad. Also the way voodoo is portrayed in this movie is also very problematic, voodoo is constantly demonized and depicted in an evil light, and this movie definitely does that. Not to mention the literal blackface! There is a witch doctor named Pierre who is played by a white actor in blackface. Pierre is extremely stereotypical and watching the scene was disgusting, In the first part of the movie there are several black actors so I’m not entirely sure why they used a white actor in black face for this scene since he’s only there for one scene. Overall there were a few things from this movie that I enjoyed, but overall I found it very boring, the plot just wasn’t that great in my opinion.
This is considered the first zombie movie, and I’m not really into zombie movies most of the time, but I wanted to watch this because Bela Lugosi is in it, and also these zombies seemed interesting because they weren’t just the typical risen from the dead zombies, they were being hypnotized. But I found this movie quite boring, the first 15 minutes is actually really good in my opinion, it’s very mysterious and draws you in, the sugar mill scene was very disturbing and chilling. This is set in Haiti so the Murderer (played by Bela Lugosi) is this rich guy that owns the sugar mill, and his workers are all zombies that he hypnotized using voodoo. During the sugar mill scene you see mainly black workers, so I thought that the way the Murder hypnotized and brought the zombies back from the dead was meant to show that even after death the white oppressors and people in power still were trying to exploit black people for labor, and I thought it was a brilliant way to represent that, but after watching the rest of the movie I don’t necessarily think that’s what they were trying to represent. But it’s still my interpretation! Overall Bela Lugosi does a great job at portraying the Murderer and the concept of what he does is very disturbing.
However, this movie had a lot of racism. The way the native Haitians are portrayed is gross, they are shown as backwards and nonsensical. The scene where Dr. Bruner was describing the “crazy native ways” was just sad. Also the way voodoo is portrayed in this movie is also very problematic, voodoo is constantly demonized and depicted in an evil light, and this movie definitely does that. Not to mention the literal blackface! There is a witch doctor named Pierre who is played by a white actor in blackface. Pierre is extremely stereotypical and watching the scene was disgusting, In the first part of the movie there are several black actors so I’m not entirely sure why they used a white actor in black face for this scene since he’s only there for one scene. Overall there were a few things from this movie that I enjoyed, but overall I found it very boring, the plot just wasn’t that great in my opinion.
