White Zombie (DVD)

..."For you, my friend, they are the angels of death."

Thus replies Murder Legendre (Bela Lugosi) to John Harron when he inquires about the zombies he encounters on the island of Haiti, the locale of this horror classic. When Harron arrives on the isle with his lovely fiancee, Madeline (Madge Bellamy), a wealthy fellow traveler, Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer), offers his lush plantation home for their nuptials. Unfortunately, Beaumont has become smitten with Madeline and enters into an unholy alliance with zombie master Legendre to win possession of her - alive or undead. They arrange for Madeline to fall ill and die, and then be resurrected as a zombie - and Charles' love slave. Who will ultimately possess the beautiful bride is decided in the film's final deadly struggle.

Filmed just after he completed Dracula, screen legend Bela Lugosi has one of his most haunting roles in White Zombie Director Victor Halperin weaves a dreamlike web of images - faceless zombies endlessly laboring to push a gigantic mill wheel as it creaks and groans, a single poisoned bridal rose, a shrieking pet vulture, a long white wedding gown that more closely resembles a death shroud - that combine to create a poetic and eerie tale not soon forgotten.

• horror